He Restores My Soul: Part 3

Read Part 1  |  Part 2

You know what makes me stay up at night? (Well, aside from my worst-case-scenario anxiety, desperate need for alone time, and good books.) What keeps me awake is the desire to make a difference. I want to believe that by working and reworking I can create something that changes things.

It’s a desire that is core to my personality, but it’s a desire that has also fueled my doing tendencies. It can turn that passion into frantic, required motion meant to prove and accomplish.

The chorus of the song by Sleeping At Last I quoted in part 2 says:

I, I wanna sing a song worth singing
I'll write an anthem worth repeating
I, I wanna feel the transformation
A melody of reformation

When I first heard that chorus I ached with sympathy. Yes! I know that feeling. I want so desperately to know that what I do will be worthy and worthwhile. It’s what motivates me to perfect things, to keep going when other people give up.

But in his beautiful and uncomfortable way this year, the Lord brought me back to Psalm 23 when I heard another song several weeks later. Internally the Spirit pointed directly back to the previous song while I was singing:

Let the King of my heart
Be the mountain where I run
The fountain I drink from
Oh, He is my song
Let the King of my heart
Be the shadow where I hide
The ransom for my life
Oh, He is my song

(King of My Heart)

The song that’s worth singing is Jesus. The anthem worth repeating is Jesus. The melody of reformation is Jesus.

The story isn’t really about the sheep and our clumsy adventures. The story is about the Shepherd. And what a Good Shepherd he is.

If I stick close to the Shepherd, he’ll lead me into paths of righteousness…paths that bring reformation and transformation.

The worth-earner in me is tempted to feel desperate and demotivated by this revelation. Like, what am I supposed to do now? I could literally sit and do nothing and still receive God’s love and grace. But of course, accepting unconditional love makes you want to reciprocate. In that way “doing” isn’t something that is required of me to measure up, it’s a gift I can give back. When the gift is something you know the recipient will love, it’s a joy to give—it’s restorative and replenishing.

So I’m going to keep trying to be a sheep that knows I’m loved and to follow the Shepherd and I’ll keep you posted.

He Restores My Soul: Part 2

Read Part 1

There’s a song by Sleeping At Last that says:

The list goes on forever
Of all the ways I could be better
In my mind
As if I could earn God's favor given time
Or at least "congratulations"

Now I have learned my lesson
The price of this so-called perfection
Is everything
I've spent my whole life searching desperately
To find out that grace requires nothing of me

Grace requires nothing of me. Gut punch.

As I’ve been really honest with myself, I fear that God is like every other area of my life and relationships and I need to try to be worthy, I need to have done the right thing to get his favor. And if I can’t get his full favor at least I might be able to earn a “congratulations.”

Maybe I can’t truly be loved, but I can at least be respected for a job well done and that can almost be enough, right? You know what the price of that kind of thinking is? Everything. It’s cost me relationships. It’s cost me sanity. It’s cost me peace.

This song settled in my soul and has walked me through Psalm 23:1-3 by the hand of grace. I don’t have to DO anything to receive God’s grace. I know that, but I have the hardest time really believing it. I’m working on believing it now.

The work I’m doing this year, my job as it were, is accepting. It’s a terribly vulnerable job, to just sit with arms outstretched and dare to hope that I can receive just because I am who I am and God is who he is.

I can be a stupid sheep, sitting on my wooly butt, and still have the Shepherd's love and favor. I can wander away and fall off a cliff and his opinion of me won’t change. That really makes my eye twitch.

But you know what? It’s also been a little bit delicious.

Instead of feeling like I need to “do” to walk with the Lord this year I’ve started just trying to be. I’m trying to embrace the fact that my spiritual self is not made up of a check list and progression chart. Part of finding restoration of the soul is acknowledging who God made me to be, who he delights in, and accept enough grace to just BE that.

I’ve found green pastures in late night fiction reading. I’ve found still waters in an obsessive and fascinating research project. I’ve found plenty when I’ve decided to say no. I’ve found freedom in my soul when I’ve relinquished control. I’ve been restored when I sit quietly and listen.

Grace requires nothing of me.

Read Part 3

One Point for Mama

I'm not a warm and fuzzy mother.  I don't worry about every little bump and bruise or if he will be unhealthy if he misses a meal.  I don't endorse extensive crying, even upon injury.  I encourage Little Nut Nut's wild adventures, which often include pushing his physical limits and testing his abilities.  How will he know what he can do if he can't try? 

Don't get me wrong, there are lots of hugs and words of affirmation.  I know our son feels secure and loved.  We also try to limit his dare devilish ways to jumping from no higher than 2 stairs and doing flips on softer surfaces.

I try to take the long view of parenting.  Most things even out in the end if you love your child, draw boundaries for them and keep them fed and watered...also, it goes a long way for your kids if you are not insane, just sayin.  Even though I don't worry about eating habits and whether or not he'll be dumb because I didn't do flash cards with him EVERY day this week, I do worry about behavior.  Not that you'd always know that by looking at my kid.  He is a sweet-spirited child but stubborn as heck.  As an extroverted boy, he has no qualms with loud and embarrassing demonstrations of his disappointment and/or rage. 

I think it's mainly my personality, but I LOVE to win.  It's so easy to get sucked into a battle mentality with my stubborn little three year old, and once that happens...heck if I'm gonna lose.  The problem is, in the world of constructive discipline that mentality doesn't get you very far.  Instead I end up crazy stressed out, angry, and still dealing with an obstinate little boy.  One day when I was at my wits end, my toddler drooling entirely-masticated "offending" food from his stubborn mouth, someone suggested I read Love and Logic for Early Childhood.  I bought that sucker on my Kindle within five minutes. 

It. Is. Awesome.  We're still working on how exactly to implement it all and of course there are still those days, but it is designed to take a lot of the frustration and anger out of parenting.  Can I hear an Amen! for that!!  (There are some aspects of the book that I don't totally agree with because it's not written from a Christian perspective, and for us, I feel it is best pared with the principles presented in One Becoming Toddlerwise.)  But, the basic premise of the Love and Logic technique is that as parents we are preparing our kids for the real world and should parent with techniques that teach them immediate cause and effect and guide them through their own problem solving. It requires accountability for actions, fixing things they've broken, paying with money, chores, or toys for time or items lost by their behaviour.

We started a Chore Box with age-appropriate chores to draw from when needed.  Our downstairs neighbors have heard a LOT of vacuuming lately!  He's been cleaning baseboards and dusting and sweeping.  I haven't had clean baseboards in, well, I don't know, but they're clean now!!  Of course, they are three-year-old-ability clean, but in a world where cleaning is not high on my list of priorities I'll take it.

So, while I realize it's not healthy to be in competition with my child over discipline issues...my house sure is clean :)...one point for Mama!

Help, I've Been Cerebrally Assualted!

Have you ever left an encounter with someone and felt that your brain has taken a beating?  I'm not talking about a healthy sparing match where each party leaves with satisfied bruising, this is more like being mentally mugged.  It happens far too often; a chance encounter while shopping, a meeting, a conversation at a social event.  One minute you feel all is right in the world, and the next you are cerebrally assaulted, someone's stupidity acting as a black hole and sucking all intelligent properties out of the conversation, gobbling up any intellectual contributions you offer and smothering them in nothingness.

It happens to me all the time.  I am not naturally a patient person; my selfishness fights the Holy Spirit from infusing me with this quality on a regular basis.  I find myself rolling my eyes, figuratively and literally, at all hours of the day.  If only people weren't so stupid, life would be better, more tolerable.

My Dad often has told me, "Stupid people need love too." To which I respond, "Maybe.  But not mine."

My natural tendency is to dismiss anything that isn't logical, intellectual, or constructive, and, honestly, the lack of those qualities equates a lack of value in my mind.  It isn't right, but that's my first reaction.  I spend a lot of energy trying to avoid these types of encounters, but with the world the way it is, there is no escape.  Frustrating.  But, I have come to the conclusion that there are only two postures I can take in these experiences...pride or humility. 

Naturally, I defer to pride.  I am prone to walk away feeling superior.  This is, however, not the Christ-like approach.  My usual response to a cerebral assault is to strike back, to put stupid in its rightful place, or to walk away aloof and dismissive. But, if I am to be more like Christ I have to learn to turn the other metaphorical brain-cheek.  Thanks, may I hear another of your ideas please?  And then try to listen without condescension.

It isn't just someone else's job to love stupid people.  It's mine too.  And, by loving them they become a little less stupid and a little more human...with flaws and failures and varying gifts just like me.  This will, no doubt, be a life-long journey for me.  Thankfully, our value to the Kingdom and the world is not based on our lack of intelligence or lack of affinity with people, but in a God, who possess those qualities infinitely greater than we ever could, who decided to love us anyway and breathe value into us through His Son.

Intelligence is important.  Very important.  You could argue that without it we all would die strange and humiliating deaths.  But, humility, patience, love...these keep people like me out of prison (from homicidal impulses) and bring people into the Kingdom of God, and that's what life's all about.  Well, maybe the prison thing is secondary, but you get my point.