If Jesus Wrote a Letter to Help Me Begin the Year

Dear Nicoll,

You know that meme that says cleaning your house while your children are in it is like chewing an Oreo while you brush your teeth. You absolutely get the futility of that, and not just on a literal or household level, don't you? You live in it 24/7/365 with your over-thinker, sweet girl. The suffering and folly you witness nags at every cell in your body, leeching your stores. You have friends and family you care for, near and far. You’re connected to the globe through technology. The desire to fix all the messes you see in the lives around you or the ones in DC or the ones across an ocean become as futile, tedious, and impossible as the ones in your own walls. You feel exhausted and scared. You want people you admire to acknowledge your striving. Please drown out distractions, even good ones, and listen to My voice and let Me help.

My abundance growing inside of you is still a mystery. You are limited by your body, mind, sin, emotions, place in time and space. Your hopes are deep and wide, actually starting to outgrow your fears. This makes me smile. Spirit is tending your garden, no matter how many weeds or pests or weather strike you. 

I want you to be still enough and careful enough this year to regulate your response to the needs around you. When your boys go with you to the store at Christmastime, you teach them the wisdom of not buying all.the.things because money and time and personhood are limited. You are learning how limited your time and energy are, as you care for little ones, a task I smile over and bless, no matter how this fast-moving world glosses over it. You appreciate that if you can hone the right resources to the wisest choices that I can manage a lot of good from your tiny, precious, specifically-selected-for-you-by-ME corner of the universe. 

Just as you understand that following your boys to clean up every crumb or crumpled sock would be needlessly draining and could take every second of your hours; just like you comprehend how teaching them to be responsible for themselves takes a lifetime of practice and re-tries, not simply one or two corrections; just like you pray they don’t become overwhelmed by all this world’s distractions to the point of either greedy self-combustion or neglectful apathy: you understand the importance of stewarding discernment about the opportunities before the path I’ve given to you. And, Nicoll, please remember it’s not a path you must neurotically and immaculately service. Yes, it does require constant vigilance, but not endless nitpicking. 

I know you worry about your loved ones. You want to fix their feelings. You want to fix their follies. Some of it is from a pure-hearted love, but you also don't want their shrapnel to whack you unexpectedly if you could control everything. Girl, that is not your job. Keep maturing in loving-kindness toward others; and keep maturing in letting go of their messes. You have proved to yourself repeatedly how incapable you are at saving others. Leave that to Me. And maybe you’ll have more energy to just tenderly abide in the time and place I selected for you, more energy for loving when you're not so concerned about fixing.  

You know my Father, Spirit, and I live and move and care for each of your loved ones even more than you do. I have proved to you repeatedly how I can handle each situation with steadfast salvation, even the heart-breaking ones that leave you with more questions and need for trust than tangible likability. Yes, you believe and know I am Sovereign enough to choose the right times and places for the countless billions of humans I’ve created and with whom I abide. You don’t have to carry my heartbreak or wonder about it. You're starting to sense how deep and wide and magnificent my plan for salvation of all creation is, not how limited and exclusive other insecure people have made it seem. That’s frankly none of your concern, and of course you can’t manage it. I can. I am. 

So this year, stop getting overwhelmed by everyone’s problems. Be a steward to your own problems and a loving fellow human to others when they deal with their own. Maybe you will find ways to help, and maybe the best help will be to mind your own problems while others seek Me in their own. Remember that prayer I taught you that has been helping you with your internal boundaries of overwhelming people and future concerns: "My Father, who lives in Heaven..."

Your path will cross with others. Sometimes the traffic will be frustrating and heart-wrenching. My One path is masterfully fed by gazillions of meandering and unique lives that intersect and weave in and out of each other. I am mysterious, and you can trust the good you all so desperately seek. Keep your eyes on me, your North Star. Help others look up to see Me. But you’re not driving their path, you can’t make them look, you can't carry them on your back, just show them where they can spy me and pace yourself. 

Show your children Holy Management: how to peacefully accept what you cannot change, the courage to change what you can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Don't give up when you have things left to learn. That's a good sign you're truly alive.

Love, 

Jesus, the Savior of each rhythmic, constructive, mysterious year

What I meant about having a good relationship with yourself

Clarity about a personal relationship with oneself keeps sifting through my mind. I’ve grown up in a very conservative Christian culture, so I expect when people don’t see me blatantly saying, “Your relationship with God is the most important aspect of mental health,” many of you panic and worry about my eternal salvation based on my syntax and how many people I just routed to the wide path of destruction. Is that over-dramatic?  I am a sensitive, obsessive person who has grown up in a very nit picky, legalistic environment. Some of you do not hold onto the things like super-Velcro, and I am so happy for you if that is your personal setting. Some of you are like me, though, and I want to help others hold onto what is good and release what is unhealthy. 

The two most important commands are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus said every little law (that humans turned into nit picky Velcro latches of fear and insecurity, missing the big picture) is summed up by these two commands.

When God first introduced the FIRST command, back in Deuteronomy, he prefaced it by saying, “The LORD your God, the LORD is one.” Other than asking you to reflect on the three persons of God, the three basic identities of LOVE becoming centered in ONE, before instructing us to love Him with all of my self, I won’t say much. I think learning to go through the process of centering your personality and experiences and channeling what you uniquely discover into the North Star of God’s limitless Being is a realization of starting in one step and heading toward a place you’ll never reach — but that you can certainly know if you’re getting closer to or farther away from. 

God lets us be creative because He made us creatively. He didn’t spell out every step or stamp out a one-size-fits-all mold.

Knowing yourself, the self that God made with a masterfully creative purpose, is essential to loving God. You do believe you were uniquely and creatively made, right?

And you can only love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. No, you’re not worthy, and you’re undeserving. But you are wanted and you are worth it. If you don’t strive to believe that about the image God made in you, then you won’t even see the image He made in others. You can try, though. Keep trying. God will give you the creative fuel you need for the next step when you run empty.

Am I condoning selfishness? No! But you are a self who requires attention for wellbeing to be cultivated. And you have to try and make mistakes and learn from those mistakes every day about how to be well without being selfish. But if you aren’t well, especially out of self-neglect or self-hate, then you’re a different kind of selfish black hole. I am speaking from my own place. 

So if you got prickly and nit picky about my last post, I wanted to clarify. We are sitting in service today, hearing how we should love God and others, loathing ourselves and hiding because of how overwhelmed we feel by the call to love like Jesus did.

He gave us a North Star, not an impossible mission. We can all see the North Star from our different vantage points and move closer. But you have to observe from where you are presently to take one step. And then take another.

So, yeah, learn to have a good relationship with yourself. And know that it’s because God wants you just like He made you. He hopes you’ll keep seeking His North Star, and he gave you faith, hope, and love to help you keep maturing through the journey. Rest, work, play, help others, observe present matters.

And don’t give up.

A Continued Conversation About Suicide -- Healing Inside

Suicide breaks my heart, each time I hear news about someone taking his or her own life. I have struggled with self-harm and suicidal thoughts through years of depression and anxiety. Confusion adds to the frustration of my loneliness, bitterness, and fear because I've been blessed, despite some very rocky twists on life's journey. Reasons I can't count contribute to the reasons individuals struggle with self-hate. As I age, and my brain doesn't get fitter with each passing day, I meditate a lot on finding a solution to this heartache. I don't think suicide has as much to do with outside circumstances and relationships, although those certainly have influence, as it does with a personal relationship with one's self. We're expected to make so many impacting decisions before we even know ourselves; people are filling up our minds and hearts before we have the ability to guard them.

Since having children, the exhausting passions of my regretful past and their please-God-full-of-hope-and-confidence-future swirling inside of me not only make some days harder than others, but I also deeply desire to overcome the intensifying self-hate, -doubt, -hopelessness so I can believe my kids will pass through the fire and the waves on their paths. My father-in-law took his own life last year, and it shook up all of us. My husband and I had been battling my suicidal thoughts quietly with my family before that. And it's just an aching, real thorn that needs remedy -- inside our family and throughout the world.

Yeah, one of my problems is that I want to rescue everyone. Which really does *nothing* but make me great at hiding from everyone -- because I can't handle the truth that I can't save people AND I'll still have that feeling when I'm around them. And I am okay hiding until I can handle that truth. It's what I need right now, and one day I'll be ready.

Soooo... I'm trying to keep in mind this blog post, on this blog in which I've been honest about my struggles multiple times before, isn't going to save the world. But maybe it can help someone else in your efforts to love yourself and practice loving yourself every day. Just like with romance, love isn't a one-time magnetic suck that makes everything assured forever -- it's a commitment to hard, tedious work, a steadfast ability to pick up yourself after you fail, to let yourself be happy and free to succeed, owning your ups and downs through life's ups and downs, acknowledging the passing of time and seasons. Anyway, this is my current role on this journey.

I am an incredibly lonely person. Looking in on my life, you would wonder how on Earth that is possible. I have a supportive husband, adorable, mostly-not-crazy kids, and a community of church family that spans all the different stops in my 33 years of life. How can I be lonely? Come to think of it, how've I always felt so lonely?

I hate being real with people, but I hate even more to be unreal. And, guess what, I feel like my reality is poison, actually green toxins you can see spewing out of my ears, nose, and mouth if you get too close. I have always been sensitive, obsessive, and very aware of brokenness and darkness -- but I want to impress people too. I mean, who wouldn't have a blast hanging around someone like me? (roll my eyes)

In the kids' movie Frozen, two sisters learn to love each other through the magical curse/cursed magic of the eldest. Elsa has this amazing ability to create ice artwork, but it's also really dangerous if it gets out of control. My little sister has red hair and an optimistic personality, like Anna, so it's easy for me to identify with Elsa the Ice Queen. She hides in her room her whole life after her magic accidentally hurts her baby sister, and then when she reaches the age for her queenly duties, her emotions lose control about what her responsibilities and the possibility of injury could mean? Afraid to hurt anyone, she runs up to hide on a mountain, alone, where she can't hurt anyone. If only her story could end there, "happily"? She has a little sister who loves her and wants to be with her, plus she, unbeknownst to her, brought on a summer blizzard that has trapped everyone in the fjord village. Ugh. She has to be part of the world. She has to use her gifts to fix the mess she made. 

But then she also gets to love and be loved. 

And she gets to explore and use her gifts for joy and progress. 

We each have poison inside of us that becomes infectious when misunderstood, but we also each have magic inside of us that can make our world a better place when paired with love. 

Self-talk is so important. POSITIVE self-talk is going to construct your skills and build joy around you. Negative self-talk is going to imprison you and hurt those who care for you.

Break away from belief systems that are unhealthy. Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, though. All or nothing is as much a myth as a flawless idea of perfection. Every single step between where you begin and where you end up matters as much as the adorable baby and the admired elder. I've realized that how seriously and absolutely I obey every sermon I've ever heard, all of them told by mere humans who don't know it all and many of whom are just as unhealthy as I am, hurts me. I have come to believe that any pleasure I have is wrong, and that I only live for others' pleasure. Scratch that! It made me miserable, resentful, and stunted. But I am not throwing away all the loving community of my church family because of it. They have been there my whole life, being patient when I was oh.so.fun, and they will continue to be. I may have to set better boundaries in my mind, but I want to be here for them too.

And now I actually understand why having a personal friendship with Jesus is what being His follower is about, not church worship doctrine or moral control over my surrounding people. Jesus is such a good friend to me. That used to creep me out when I heard hippie-dippie people say it. But now He is the breath that keeps me alive, and I look forward to knowing Him even better every day and seeing how He can make the world better -- just through me, not my doing. He is with me on my good days, and He is with me on my bad days -- being with me, hoping with me, not condemning me.

Okay, I have to go. The kids will be awake and chattering soon. Please let me know if you need to talk. I won't always be available because I am a human with a family and much to do... but I can try to help you find what you need. Counselors and crisis hotlines are very good first steps. Medication is wonderful too. God has made a lot of smart, dedicated, real people who are tackling reality in practical ways to help us. 

The first jump into the pool is always the coldest and most uncomfortable -- but if you take the plunge, the joy follows swiftly. And then you start over again the next time. Don't give up. 

Finding Glory in Personalities Not Shame

“Isn’t it wonderful,” said Lucy. “Have you noticed one can’t feel afraid, even if one wants to? Try it.” ~From The Last Battle by CS Lewis

I get bogged down by my personality, and even though I see a sea of self-assured others, I think I am not the only one wanting to like myself but finding it difficult. The things that seem easy for non-shy, vibrant, decisive personalities are like pulling shameful teeth for me. Flexible strength comes by stretching out of my comfort zone, which is good. BUT I also feel like I’ve been distracted from more purposeful tasks by trying to be something I’m not, fitting into roles not meant for me, or wallowing in shame for not being more like So & So. Embracing who I am and setting focused boundaries for myself, while also having the ability to adapt when needs arise, feels true and good as I practice being who God made to be and as He continues to help me mature. 

The mystery of God’s purposes inside individuals’ personality traits fascinates me, especially as I seek, ask, and knock for Him to clear MY path—or at least point me in the right direction for swinging my scimitar at all the jungle vines distracting me and barring my way. I have a lot of curiosity in how nature and nurture sharpen and shape each person through life’s relationships and experiences. This psychological frontier in our first world of resources and education seems as exciting as any trip to the stars, except as a treasure hunt for God's glory inwardly limitless toward countless souls. I believe it will help so many brothers and sisters find our places in Christ’s Kingdom, the parts of His body we are. Not that we don’t already have significant places without understanding ourselves better, but I think understanding whether we’re introverted or extroverted or knowing if we avoid pain or wallow in it — and why — can help us move past distractions and insecurities we place on on ourselves to make love more whole in His church. (1 Corinthians 12:12-27)

In the past month I have finally read two books that have been on my radar for a while: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain and Love Does by Bob Goff. The authors are two talented humans who have very different personalities, but who have both sought excellence in who they are. 

I am an introverted person, who is not only overwhelmed by crowds and noise, but also by trying to sort out all the feelings in my heart and thoughts in my head. A lot is going on "upstairs," requiring a lot of internal energy, but it gets jumbled on its way out of my mouth or when trying to connect with others. When I read Quiet, I felt relieved to understand my brain, just like my counselors have been telling me, is wired to feel uncomfortably and anxiously stimulated in certain settings. I’m not a cowardly, shameful, disappointingly useless vessel if I prefer slower, quieter, more cautious, and therefore hopefully healthier and deeper manners of relationship with a few, as opposed to charismatic friendships with any and all. Cain even had a chapter devoted to how anxious introverted Christians usually feel in typical evangelical settings; our reluctance to be immediately and expressively welcoming to strangers in crowds with eternal-salvation pressure has us feeling like we don’t love people (and therefore God) enough. Despairing sigh. I don't know if she is a Christ-follower, but I think she had a lot of useful things to offer the Christian population in how we consider ministry and allowing different parts of the body to be utilized for their proper purposes, which has implications far beyond the extroverted and introverted dynamic. She highlighted talents introverts have that have encouraged me to value the less conventional services I can offer the world and to be creative with what I feel comfortable doing, instead of just assuming I am a wimp with no character. Just because I am introverted doesn’t mean I am going to hide in a hole. Being conditioned by extroverted family members and a lifetime of Christian fellowship may have left me feeling out-of-place many times; but now that I am more aware of myself and others, I also am thankful for how those encounters saved me from isolation and loneliness, stretched me into stronger and more flexible skins. 

Bob Goff is an amazing human. I really like who he is. And I feel like he is my opposite. I dislike how weighed down I feel by responsibility and danger. I am two-thirds through Love Does, and I am struck by not only his courageous and FUN spirit, but also by his humility and what must be a work ethic that matches his sense of adventure to provide for all his spontaneous worldly excursions and rescues. His life is full of amazing encounters that are brimming with the Spirit’s abundant presence. Wow! Honestly, as much as I enjoy his stories, I have an equal amount of resentment that I am not driven toward fun like he is. My sense of responsibility and scarce, limited resources has led me to a path of honoring deprivation and misery over abundance and opportunities. I have hated that about myself for forever, especially when reading parables about how Jesus made more than enough out of nothing. I’m likely not going to experience the freedom Goff enjoys, the material or spiritual, until Heaven. But finding opportunities in my own unique little life to cultivate God’s blessings doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Just because I am much different than a fun adventurer doesn’t mean my responsibility or concern for danger can’t be healthy somewhere in our path, right? 

For years now I have been trying to retrain my automatic thoughts to hopefully open a path of flourishing, instead of withering. A lot of progress has been laid, but much dead overgrowth that sucks significant stores away from healthy limbs is left to prune. 

Who am I? Why am I here? How can I embrace what’s mine when everyone else’s is in “plain sight” to covet? I just turned 33. Time is passing too quickly. I want to stop wondering about wandering. God, I know Your grace protects my limited, ignorant soul; but please make known to me my part in Your Kingdom because I am eager to engage with You and the people around me. I want to see healthy boundaries clearly so my yes can be yes and my no can be no, without all the squandering doubt and anxiety. The compass of my conscience has burned out. However, the wearier my faith becomes the stronger becomes Your faithfulness. At least that is apparent. 

CS Lewis describes heaven as an onion in The Last Battle; only, instead of the layers getting smaller as you “go further up and further in,” they get larger and more beautiful and more real. I think each of our hearts and minds are like this, with His Kingdom in our hearts even now in this “Shadowland” of what is to come — and I believe more pixels of God can be revealed to us as we pair knowing ourselves with His Word and the Spirit’s work in our days. 

Bob Goff lives without fear. Susan Cain reminds me that the anxiety attached to my brain composition can be concentrated into useful and needed roles. And CS Lewis paints a varnish of beauty over all this. What will I remind people of? 

The Simple Answer to My Complicated Mom Guilt

He tends His flock like a shepherd:

He gathers the lambs in His arms

and carries them close to His heart. 

HE GENTLY LEADS THOSE WHO HAVE YOUNG.

Isaiah 40:11

The fear of how I'm screwing up my kids is a messy thing to untangle every day, which usually just makes the knots tighter and more complicated. 

I know I can’t have all the answers to enact all the perfectionism to make our kids always flawless, strong, kind, and brave. I know. BUT I keep striving for the answers anyway. I convince myself that somebody somewhere has it all figured out, so why am I messing up everything?! Why can’t I do all the good things in just the right ways?! It’s like I think I’ll get a pat on my back in Heaven for making my kids just.like.Jesus, unlike any other human ever, IF I could just get my act together. Yikes.

• Working in the home or in a career
• rich or poor
• optimistic or depressed
• different paths of faith
• varying levels of health concerns
• a spectrum of family of origin issues to unpack and reorder
• impactful personality quirks
• regrettable pasts
• No matter the Mommy, we wear so much weight and shame about how to do the best for our kids. 

How do we move past the fear birthed by shame in ourselves and bitterness toward others to claim present joy for future strength? That’s a mystery I earnestly want to discover to the depths of my heart. And I think the answer is much simpler than I want it to be, peaceful instead of restless. 

I spend most of my finite soul energy believing if I could just figure out those exact answers (the false ones I imagine those people have, the ones with aesthetically hospitable homes or dysfunction-free families or courageous faiths or impressive accomplishments), then we’ll have always-excellent hearts, with no sin or struggle. Then we could not only be fulfilled in our walls, but we could also pour light out on all the dark places outside. [In my victorious commentator voice:] We can end world hunger and give homes to all the orphans and peacefully mediate all the warring countries, save the babies, heal the wounded. When I get it (all) right, then we’ll matter, and until then, we’re useless is this lie I believe. I keep waiting for assurance from an illusory audience that I have what it takes to perform on a stage that doesn’t exist.

Through all these little struggles, like the baby’s digestive and teething woes (must be my fault), the 4-year-old’s loneliness (must be my fault), the 7-year-old’s constant forgetfulness of consistently taught manners (must be my fault)...

... I wonder how screwed up they’re going to be as adults, especially considering how much more intricate the emotions and trials will become as their minds and bodies develop through puberty in this world spilling over with distractions. Ugh.

And then throw my own body, mind, and relational shortcomings on top of it all...

I sometimes can’t see the happy moments right in front of me through all the imagined fog of therapy sessions, where my adult children are going to wonder with their counselors why I didn’t know or do better for them.

And then I read on social media about the horrible choices people I knew as innocent kids with compassionate parents... 

I read how the world’s poverty and sorrow are all my fault because I was too spoiled to even think past my own existence...

Guilt emerges. 

Hope fights back. 

Fear tackles it all.

Sigh.

I spend all my days trying to figure out the exact issue(s) I am causing to ruin their futures, to make the world even worse. Instead of being useful to the future, we’re just leeching off it even more. I try to live by “Don’t bother anyone, don’t be bothered; and then at least you’re neutralizing the problem, Nicoll...” (That's all wrong for so many reasons.)

My limitations haunt me, like specters multiplying as I take each step down life’s hallway. The doorways of past and future hold the most fearful of the condemnation-spewing demons.

Is it something in my household management skills, the reactions I have in emotional moments, the ignorance in my Bible teaching, the boundaries I set with the surrounding world, the fears I don’t even realize I’m afraid to face?

My heart rate and blood pressure rose just writing this post. I’m sorry. Hear me on this: I am living my dream, and I constantly thank God that my husband and I have been provided the details we need to raise our children the way we believe is best with our unique stories. When I am well-rested and everyone is pooping regularly, I know we are building a spiritual legacy for our kids that will glorify God’s plan. I am thankful we have flexible options for strange seasons. And I am thankful to see how colorfully God can be glorified because many of our friends do things differently than we do, and they all have different personalities and dynamics in their homes.

I just want to be present in my story as the character who supports those closest to me in their stories. I want to strongly and graciously adjust to new chapters, settings, plot lines, characters.

We compare ourselves, dangerously, to what we imagine others are doing better. We make Pinterest or That Family at church or school or on Facebook our models for what must be right. We want them to acknowledge us as successful, to not only “Like” our moments, but “Love” them or “Laugh” at them. What a complicated ladder to climb toward a place that doesn’t exist and therefore doesn’t matter. We remember things that person said or does and hold ourselves to that random standard, meanly berating ourselves for our different approaches when struggles hit.

But everyone struggles. Everyone fails. And every person can seek unique excellence without entering a false rat race of human standards.

All along, our whole lives, through every Bible story we’ve ever heard, even if poorly taught, we have been taught that none of us will get it all right. We mommies can’t predict it all. Our husbands can’t do it all. Our babies will break their own hearts and/or someone else’s. We all need the righteousness of Jesus to be our True North because we can’t find The Way on our own. We will get lost. Our babies will get lost.

But we'll be found.

Jesus is the only righteous One, and we have been given what we need to point our children in His direction through good, bad, and ugly times. 

That’s it.

A friend shared a Gospel Coalition article with me earlier this week that so simply answered all this grotesque guilt I needlessly feed every day.

"Only in the past decade am I learning that my main role is to be a disciple of Jesus, pointing my children to him as the source of all they need." (Kathryn Maack)

I want and need to make it less complicated than it is. Jesus is the answer. We freely have Him to walk with us through all the kinds of steps that don’t shock God.

Let’s give Jesus to our children in our strengths and weaknesses, in our striving and rest, in our questions and confusion, in our answers and our silence. That way they can get back up every time they fall. We are building them through storms and fires, not demolishing them or giving up on them. Let’s do the same for ourselves as parents.

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