Try Hard

I've spent my whole life trying hard.

We've hashed through this quite a bit recently on this blog.

I look all around me, and I see people... striving.  I think "striving" is a good way to describe it.  If you look up the definition to "strive", you'll see words like exert vigorously, make strenuous efforts, or struggle.

It makes me think of yesterday, watching my 3 1/2 year old try to make her way across the back yard.  The problem is we have had over three feet of snow in the past couple weeks.  I watched as she would struggle to take a step, and once she finally did she would sink down in snow up to her armpits.

She was struggling.  An exertion was taking place.  I felt tired watching her.

Before, I tried because I was afraid.  I felt I had already disappointed anyone who mattered to me, so every new person I met felt like a  new opportunity to prove myself.  I tried because I was hungry for restoration. It was a dark hunger, the kind that gnaws at your insides to the point that you feel sick.

Even though I tried, I reserved myself, so that if I failed, I could lick my wounds and comfort myself with the fact that I hadn't given everything I had.

When I allowed God to heal my past hurts, and began to learn how to accept the love He offered me, my trying changed.

Actually, I think at first my trying  pretty much stopped.  It was a gathering of my thoughts, emotions, and past experiences.  It was a regrouping and redefining period.  I kind of sat in this rest of the idea that I didn't have to prove anything anymore.

But I feel like something incredible happened at that point.

Something new was born in me.

I wanted to try again.  But this time I wanted to give everything.  I wanted to jump off the edge of the cliff to fly with no safety net.

I became more brave because I had experienced the grace of God.

Suddenly, I was aware that even if I took a huge, clumsy tumble (that I am known for!), it didn't mean anything. It wouldn't keep God from loving me, or being proud of me.

During this last stint in the hospital, Trevor came into my room with a little stuffed eagle (not an actual stuffed eagle. A stuffed animal eagle). He said he didn't know why, but it made him think of me.

So, I named her Elizabeagle the eagle, because that's how I do.

But honestly, it's probably my favorite thing he's ever given me.  Because, at the risk of sounding extremely corny, I feel like that eagle.   Now I feel like I can soar.

Okay. I'm starting to sound like a Ray Boltz song.

Hopefully this post connects with you! Have you ever struggled with trying for the wrong reasons? Let me know in the comments!

New Year, Same You!

What is it about us that makes us love a clean slate? I'm definitely one of those people.  I love looking outside and seeing a sheet of white snow in its pristine state. It doesn't last long, because I have small children that leave behind a trail that looks like something a drunk buffalo would make.  But, I enjoy it while it lasts.

Nothing makes me sigh in complete contentment like a freshly scrubbed bathroom, mopped kitchen floor, or washed kitchen table.

You know the feeling: sleeping on freshly laundered sheets, rolling around a freshly cut lawn, marvelling at how much better your walls look with a fresh coat of paint.

We love what is... unspoiled.

I think that's why New Year's Eve holds such a feeling of excitement, anticipation, and in a way, sanctity.

We make lists of things we want to change in the new year.  I know I made one.

We look with hope at this year, standing before us wholly unspoiled.

For some reason, a lot of us look at this as our one chance for change.  If we miss it, we have to wait an entire year before we can try again.

The truth is, the clean slate is always available.

Yep.

That's one reason why I waited until January 2 to begin working on my January goals.  I felt like it was important for me personally to break the stigma of having to begin on the first day of the new year.

See, this year is different.  It's the first year I've ever faced in my 30 years where I am extending grace to myself.

I've always convinced myself that being kind to myself and forgiving myself would cause failure.  Turns out I was completely wrong.

Your clean slate is always available.

God doesn't care what day it is.   He is interested in you. Your wholeness.  Your healing.

His time scale is quite a bit different than ours.

Embrace His mercy.  Let Him really love you.

Let Him show you your clean slate.

Even if it is January 2nd.

Value

Value is a silly thing.

Try explaining it to a kid. They see a shiny coin and will think that it must be far more valuable than a floppy piece of paper.  If you take a three year old and give them a choice between a shiny penny and a five dollar bill, chances are they're going to grab the penny.

They don't see the value in cash like we do.  They don't know the understood value behind the dollar bill; they just see a worthless scrap.

It's similar to the fact that we, the western culture consumers that we are, throw out tons of perfectly good "garbage" while holding onto other items for dear life.

It's not always about a monetary value, though.  I'd be much more okay with someone stealing my television than I would my box of childhood memorabilia.

It all depends on what we determine has value.

In this day and age, we're quick to rip away the value from anything that has been cracked, stained, broken, tarnished.  While our parents and grandparents would whip out the glue, duct tape and wd-40, we are just as quick to trash it and move on to the next.

Sadly, we do that to ourselves as well.  When we fall, make mistakes, or don't reach our lofty goals, we deem ourselves worthless.  We strip ourselves of all value.

God wants us to discover this crucial truth:  He has created us! And then recreated us when we made a mess of ourselves.  Ephesians 2:10 says we are God's masterpiece, a new creation in Christ Jesus, who made us for good  things he planned for us long ago!  There is such hope in these words.

God has created you intentionally. Specifically with the values that He has placed in you.  He knew you were going to screw up.  He knew that you would fail.  He knew people would criticize you and mock you, and cause you to doubt that what He had created in you was real.  He knew you would twist your values and use them for purposes that weren't His.  He knew that you would try to ignore the values He's given you and run as hard as you could in the other direction.

But the truth is, the reality of who you are, the values placed in you by God himself, cries out to be heard.  I know they have in me.

I've been lucky enough to have counselling that has really been life changing for me (I recommend it to everyone).  One of the biggest things I've gained from counselling is learning what my values are. How God has wired me.  They are the characteristics that I feel are most important (therefore put the most value in).  For me, they are: compassionate, creative, visionary, and faithful.

I realized when I tried to ignore the values God had placed in me, I was miserable and angry.

I read a quote yesterday that really hit me.  It's a C.S. Lewis quote, in the voice of the mighty lion, Aslan. He says:
             "You doubt your value. Don't run from who you are."

How much time do we spend doubting and running, instead of believing and embracing?

When God redeems us, He does it because He loves us. He has place a value on us that goes far beyond what we could ever earn through our own effort. It is because He said it is.

So don't doubt your value.  Don't run from who you are.

God is working in you.  And when He has started something, He always finishes it.

A Follow Up

It's not really fair to write a post about being angry and then never follow up on it.

Alas, that is what I did.

It's funny- I was finally at a point in my life where for the first time in years, my life was devoid of major crisis and things were starting to come together.

The church my husband and I pastor was growing and vibrant and full of loving people.  I had my dream job teaching worship and drama to high school students.

Life was good.

But I was so angry.

I didn't want to sit and wallow in my hurt and anger anymore.  I was hurting the people I loved the most. I was miserable.

Thankfully, God was waiting to meet me in my brokenness.

When I was a little girl, I had this incredible love relationship with God. It was that beautiful, innocent affection a little girl has for her daddy.  I couldn't get enough of Him.  I loved to sing and write songs about Him.  At church I would stand on the pews and sing at the top of my lungs.  That was my happy place. I loved to preach sermons about Him and record them on cassette tapes.

For reasons I won't go into here, I began to feel shame about my effusive affection for my heavenly Father.  I felt embarrassed that I was so intrinsically compelled to create and to worship the God I loved in such a loud and vibrant way.

I had lived my life so far in a complete abandon to who God created me to be without fear of rejection, and suddenly, I felt like I was told that who I was, that little girl who sang off key at the top of her lungs, was wrong. Was shameful.  Was not good enough.

When that happened, my 5 year old self made two life altering statements:

1. Who I am is not good enough.

2. God thinks I am not good enough.

When I began to believe these statements, something in my little 5 year old heart changed.  It hardened. I began making decisions that affected every aspect of my life.  I set out to prove everyone wrong, and to change God's mind about me.  If I could be perfect, then maybe people could see that I am enough.

The problem is, I'm not perfect.  I sang in talent contests, I preached in church, I did well in school, I tried to be a good kid.  But I still made mistakes.  This need to please everyone and gain their approval created quite a disaster when a mistake was present.  I became defensive and angry, because I was so desperate to not be seen as a failure.

And most of all, it put a huge wedge between myself and God.  The love I had for Him didn't go away, but when joined with the thought that He saw me as a disappointment, I had an obsession with trying to be enough to make Him pleased with me.

This continued into my adult life. This constant cycle of trying to please and then giving up in frustration at my lack of perfection started defining every part of my life.  In college, if I felt I was not doing well on a paper, project, or even a class, I would just give up. I'd rather guarantee my failure by giving up than try and fail.  At least if I failed because I didn't try, I didn't feel like I was being rejected.

I was defensive at correction and criticism. It's like I had a gaping wound where my hurt and bitterness just gushed out like blood. I was a mess and it was affecting everyone around me.

God miraculously met me in my mess.  He helped me discover the lies I've believed for years and began a process of restoration in my life.

He even worked through a friend of mine, who told me "God will restore the relationship you had with Him as a 5 year old little girl."

He had no idea the significance of what he was saying.  But I did.

God is active in our lives.  God is so eager to show us His love and extend His mercy.

He is in the business of redeeming what has been lost, restoring what has been broken, and resurrecting what has been left for dead.

I'm on a journey of restoration, and I feel more like that 5 year old little girl than I have in a very long time.

In His kindness God called you to share in His eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus.  So after           you have suffered a little while, He will restore, support, and strengthen you, and He will place you on a firm foundation.
      1 Peter 5:10

Anger

I'm angry.

I think I'll just start my post off with the honest to God truth.

I tried to start it off all nice and fluffy and work my way into the meat of it.  But, nah. 

Here goes...

I've got this friend.

Who I love dearly.

Who scares the ever living daylight out of me.

See, he's the one who always tells me like it is. 

All it takes is four little words: "Can I be honest?"

Dang.

He lives in the Philippines, so I can do a pretty good job pretending like he doesn't exist most of the time.

But this friend recently visited us here in the frozen north. I was convinced he was here to inspire our church family as we work towards a relaunch, and to speak to the students at the Christian school where I'm a teacher. Which he did.

But that's not all he did.

One night I came downstairs after the kids went to sleep to find my friend sitting at the kitchen table having a talk with Trevor. 

I went to wash the dishes, but was summoned to join them at the table.

Sigh.

I wasn't sure I could handle what was coming.

My friend looked at me and dropped the bomb:

"You're angry."

Of course, I cried.

Because I knew he was right.  And I felt this outpouring of emotions I had dammed up inside me.  I was angry. Because I was hurt. Which made me ashamed. Which made me defensive. Which made me angrier.

I am angry about the situations out of my control that have caused me and the people around me pain.  I have a sense of injustice that creeps up my throat and feels like it's choking me most days.

I am even angrier about the situations in my life that are in my control, that I've created, that cause me and my family pain.  These breed such a sense of shame, self-hatred, and worthlessness that makes it difficult somedays to simply put one foot in front of the other.

I'm angry, but I'm not hopeless.  Because I know that this is not meant to be my life. 

And it doesn't have to be.

It won't be.

I wish this was one of those awesome Jesus blogs that I could tell you I read my Bible and prayed a 37 second prayer and now I'm all better.

But I'm not.

I will probably never be "fixed."

Paul said in Philippians 3 that he hadn't reached perfection:
      

No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.           Phil 3:13-14 

I'm just at the beginning of a long journey. 

But by being honest about it, I've finally taken the first step.

“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”
―    Mark Twain

A Change

Woo-hoo! I am officially the worst person in the universe for leaving people hanging.

Who really starts a blog series, even going as far as naming the first installment "Part One" and then NEVER finishes it?

(Imagine me pointing my thumbs to my chest) This guy. Girl. Whatever. You get the point.

So, I'm not even going to finish what I started.  Maybe someday.  But not today. Probably not tomorrow.

In fact, the whole nature of my defunct blog which is kicking back into gear is changing. 

I'm not going to lie.  It's easier to write funny things and tell stories from my childhood.  Which I will get back to. 

But right now they're just hiding what's really going on in me. 

And that's what I want to share now.

Because maybe my fight will help someone else.

And I want to have a place to be completely open with what is currently going on in me, which up to now I've regarded with such shame I've kept hidden.

So...

Lost Phones

I know I usually tell stories about my little boy, Aidan, when I blog.  Don't worry.  That'll still happen.  The kid is a gold mine of sound bytes.  The thing is, his little sister, Ainsley has been moving up in the ranks.  She's past that "I'm a cute blob with big brown eyes" stage and now has become a force to reckon with.  Actually, that seems like an understatement.  I'm not sure there are enough words in the dictionary to aptly describe her personality.  But I shall try to paint a picture of who she is with the eloquent brush strokes that are my stellar writing skills. 

Okay, I'm currently on percocet so please bear with me and ignore my overestimations of how talented and funny a writer I am.

For some reason in our household the babies have a serious aversion to phones.  Okay, that's not necessarily true.  Ainsley can successfully distinguish the difference between an iPad and iPhone and asks for them on a current basis.  She's actually taught me some tricks on the iPad.  It also took me a week to figure out how to turn the annoying voice over off.  I was too stubborn to Google it.

So I guess you can say they just hate home phones.

When Aidan was about nine months old, we were sitting at home and I heard a faint beeping in the distance. 

It wasn't one of those nice, soft beeps.  No tinkling of wind chimes.  Not even a distant car alarm. 

Nay, it was that horrible, horror movie, makes you want to punch someone in the face beeping that comes from a phone being off the hook.

I can just imagine back in the eighties- you know, the decade God turned his back on the world, back when you wanted to make a call you rotary dialed that number and were attached to the phone terminal by a leash- a really curly bouncy leash that just cried out to you to use it for a jump rope while your mom was on the phone with your Auntie.... and then it'd get all tangled in a big curly knot and you'd spend three hours slowly twisting the ringlet back in order like the phone was going to the prom or something.  Why the curly cord?  Was that to make it safer?  Less strangleable or something?  Anyway, I digress.

So I assume it was in the eighties when they decided to have the phones make that noise when it was left off the hook.  Someone was like "Hey guys, we've got a problem!  All of a sudden there's been a rash of people using their phones for jump ropes and forgetting to hang them up when they're done! Maybe we should come up with the most annoying noise known to man and have the phone start emitting that noise like it's demon possessed so they know to hang up their phones!" 

Done.

So Aidan and I are hanging out and I hear faint demon beeping.  I stalk around the house searching for this evil noise.  No where to be found.  Finally I make my way to a heater vent in the floor.  Hmm..   It's mysteriously askew. 

Ah yes.  Sure enough the phone and some other trinkets had been shoved down the heater vent by my angelic nine month old.

So when Ainsley tried the same thing I stopped her with a smug grin on my face.  Not this time.  I'm an experienced mom now. 

So she broke the heater vent cover.  It became her personal storage unit.

Okay.

Then she decided to start using the garbage to hold all of our valuables.

Keys, money, wallets, and of course, the phone.

I can't even tell you how many times I've barely rescued household items from the eternal banishment of the garbage truck.  We've had some close calls.   

Really, in my heart I knew it was only a matter of time before I would be defeated.

One day I had to make a really important phone call. 

I searched everywhere.  I looked in all of Ainsley's hiding spots.  I looked in all the places that I leave things (hey, I never said Ainsley didn't come by it honestly).  I hit the search button that's supposed to make the phone beep so you can find it.

No beeping. 

I went to look in the trash.

Empty.

It was Wednesday morning. 

Trash day.

I ran to the front to look in the garbage cans and saw the garbage truck driving away from our house.

Dang.

Meh, I wasn't a huge fan of our home phone anyway.

So Trevor and I did the logical thing.  No, we didn't ge a new phone; we cancelled our phone line all together.

A couple months later we were spring cleaning and moving our couch.  As Trevor pulled out the cushions, deep in the recesses I saw a glimmer of fake metal. 

Our phone.

We laughed and realized how useless it was then since we had gotten rid of the base for the phone.

The silly thing is (that I don't want to admit) is God really got a hold of me when I saw that phone. 

I realized how easily I give up on things and think they're gone forever when I'm actually sitting on them, stifling them myself and blaming someone else for it.

And I think we all do that.  We get discouraged, we get distracted.  We think we've failed before we've barely begun. 

So we give up.

God speaks to me through everyday things.  Sometimes it's embarassing.  It's almost always funny.  And it's something that I don't want to shut out.

So here I am.  Because this blog is my phone.  It hasn't been lost.  It's been sitting here the whole time, waiting for me to get off my bum and see it.