On Forgiveness

The ways of God are not the ways of man. 

Humans are not wired to forgive.  At least, no one in my household seems to be.  I need to buy myself an entire wardrobe of black and white referee shirts, because that’s what I do from the moment I pick up the kids until they finally drift off to sleep at night.  Sometimes the first fight happens before we even leave daycare.  I’ve been pushing the whole “be a gentleman and open doors” thing in a big way, and now Eli sprints down the steps to get to the door first.  He has a good two years of agility on Caleb, which means that every day I don’t intervene ends with Caleb sprawled on the filthy tile floor by the door because he “DIDN’T GET TO BE A GENTLEMAN!”  And if I do intervene and make Eli wait for Caleb to open the door, I get a five-year-old with his bottom lip popped out sullenly refusing to take another step toward the van.  Obviously I enjoy both scenarios immensely. 

I keep telling them, “This doesn’t matter.  SOMEONE held the door for Mommy and Violet and that’s all that matters.  Didn’t get a turn today?  Enjoy walking through that door.  Tomorrow will be your turn.  What matters most is that we are at peace.”  I guess I talk a few years above them because that lesson has yet to sink in.  They would rather have a knock-down, drag-out fight about a door than enjoy the rest of a lovely fall afternoon with their family.  In the immortal words of Elsa, “LET IT GO, KIDS!  LET IT GO!”

Which brings me to last Sunday’s service at church and some hard-hitting words on forgiveness.  Our pastor made the point that if we want to know the ways of God, we have to obey him.  And He commands us to forgive.  Over and over again.  No matter the offense.  This. Is. So. Hard.  To me, forgiveness feels like saying, “It’s OK.”  Yes, go ahead and disrespect me again.  By all means, keep taking advantage of me.  Yes, I enjoy being accused of things I didn’t do.  Let’s keep things the way they are because I just love being treated like crap.  But that isn’t forgiveness.  I don’t know where the line is drawn between defending yourself and letting it go, but I suspect that God is standing over me pointing to the beautiful day and asking, “Do you want to miss this because your heart is clinging to your rage?” 

I have so much I’ve been hanging on it, so much hurt that I am justified to carry.  But it is just weighing me down.  And I can feel it…just a little bit of peace…when I say, “God, take it.”  His ways don’t make sense to the world.  But forgiveness doesn’t make me a doormat.  It makes me free.  Free to enjoy the tiny people I get to raise.  Free to enjoy the blessings God has given.  Free to hope for the future. 

I want to know God’s ways, so I’m doing my best to step out on this one and release my anger to God.  I suspect this will be a daily, maybe even hourly battle, but it is one I know He'll help me with.

Because God’s ways are not like ours.  

I Forgot to Wave

I forgot to wave.

Every day, Caleb stands in just the right spot in his daycare classroom and watches the window to wave goodbye.  But that day, I had to stop in the office to pay for the week, and I was rushing to get to school because I had a student coming in for help.  About halfway through the day, it occurred to me that I had forgotten something, but I couldn’t remember if I’d promised to wave or not.  I kept wading through the fog in my brain until it was time to pick him up.  He had long ago recovered, but his teachers told me he stood and waited at the window and refused to move.  They tried to convince him that his mom had probably forgotten, but he still wouldn’t move.  He refused to budge until his teacher promised to write me a note, and then reminded him it was time for breakfast.  Breakfast broke his resolve, obviously.

To say this breaks my heart would be an understatement.  My sweet boy, the one I’m always afraid will get overlooked or left out, had so much faith in me that he would not be moved.  Even when it became apparent that I wasn’t going to come through.  He still believed.  I know that feeling.  I feel like I spent eight months doing the same thing, waiting for my God to show up.  Only God doesn’t forget…he’s not prone to the human failings of a mom trying to juggle a demanding job and the never-ending responsibilities of running a household.  He’s God.  His resources are endless.  So when he doesn’t show up, what am I to make of it?  Was I not steadfast in my hope?  Did I quit looking and head to breakfast?  Or did He show up and I missed it because I was looking for the wrong thing?

I feel like the last six weeks have sped by in a vacuum.  I’m getting things done, checking off lists, somehow making sure all the plates are spinning, but I can’t find God.  I do hear a relentless voice, one that points to other people who are writing, who are obviously far better at it than I.  It tells me how foolish I was to think I could make a living at this writing thing, to think I’d do anything other than preside over a classroom.  It tells me that teaching isn’t all that bad, that daycare is good enough, that I’m not cut out for anything else.  It is the only voice I hear.  Maybe it is God, and my heart was on the wrong page altogether.  Maybe I should just be grateful for the morning sunlight outside my classroom window, the first classroom window I’ve had in seven years.  Maybe I should just be grateful for a paycheck, for the chance to dig out of this financial hole.  I am.  I am.  Maybe this is all there is. 

I weaned the baby, and I’ve been crying for two weeks.  Crying because this is it.  There will be no more babies to nurse.  These days are flying by and I can never get back what I’m missing.  And I’m missing so much.  I hate that, and I don’t know what to do about it.  I’m waiting and the window, and…nothing.

No, God did not fail to show up because He forgot.  He has something else planned.  It is hard for me to trust that His plans for me are good, although He promises they are.  Faced with the decision to declare my faith in Him, I still feel there is no other choice.  Of course I have to have faith.  I just don’t understand.  And it hurts.

I do know that my heart softened toward my often tempermental sweetheart when his teachers told me how faithful he was.  I saw him anew, how he loves me, how he craves my attention.  I’m so glad he covets that wave and blown kiss.  I want to give him more…so much more than I do.  I hope God knows how much I crave His revelations of Himself.  How sorry I am that I don’t see more, understand more.  How I want Him, even though I don’t really know what I want.

Drop-Off Condemnation, For the Love

This post is part of Jen Hatmaker's "For the Love" Blog Tour, which I am delighted to be a part of along with so many other inspiring bloggers.  To learn more and join us, click here. You can find out more about the book by clicking here.

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I saw her in the drop-off line, right after I kissed my kindergartener goodbye at the door.  Skinny, clad in expensive work-out gear, Starbucks in hand as she kissed a little one goodbye and climbed back into her gleaming Lexus SUV.  One glance and I forgot how delighted I was to actually get to drop my kiddo off at school instead of sprinting off to work at the crack of dawn.  I forgot his sweet kiss, and his delight that he got to “teach” me the drop-off process.  I forgot about the sweet baby girl at home, celebrating her first birthday.  I forgot that I am a treasured daughter of God, a daughter who is loved in spite of what I can or can’t do.  Instead, a toxic mix of envy and condemnation gripped my soul.  She inadvertently hit all my trigger points: the baby weight I’m struggling to lose, my desire to be at home with my kids, and my inability to afford it no matter how much I cut from the budget.  The ugliest part of my soul began to speak.  She has the money to stay home with her kids, work out, buy overpriced coffee, and drive a nice car.  Her husband certainly appreciates what she does at home.  Maybe that’s because she’s still skinny and looks so put together.  God certainly loves her more than you.  Maybe if you worked harder, you’d look like that.  Maybe if you were a better parent, you would have been given that opportunity.  Why are you always such a mess?  Such an embarrassment?  What a foolish decision it was to take the day off work.  Since you have nothing worthwhile to contribute, you can at least go earn some money.  And with that, all the hopes, prayers, and dreams I have been clinging to these last few months evaporated from my heart.  I was back to not-good-enough.  The same not-good-enough I’ve been my whole life.  The same not-good-enough I will seemingly always be.  What a fool you've been to hope that God has something better for you.

I suspect my friends who struggle with infertility feel this way every time they see a blossoming belly, and my friends who desperately want to be married hear that same voice with every engagement announcement: it might be classified as envy, but it so much more.  It is the voice of condemnation that tells us we are foolish to hope…that we have earned our lot in life…that God has not heard our prayer because we haven’t earned His attention yet.  It is a voice designed to turn our gaze from our loving Father and center it on our pain.

I don’t know how to silence the envy and the condemnation, but God gives us clear words to speak back to them.  Romans 8:1 tells me “There is no condemnation for those who belong to Jesus Christ.”  None.  No condemnation for the laundry that has been sitting in the dryer since last week.  No condemnation for the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup I ate instead of carrots and hummus.  No condemnation for the time I forgot to wave to my three-year-old on my way out of daycare and he sulked until breakfast. I might feel terrible about my shortcomings, but they don’t change God’s divine purpose for my life.  They don’t cause Him to delight in me any less.  And they don’t cause Him to curse me to a life of never-good-enough…because it never was about how good I am to begin with. 

My sole purpose on earth is to glorify and obey my Father, not to keep up with my fellow moms.  “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord.  “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”  (Jeremiah 29:11)   I don’t understand what God is doing right now.  The only place I can see him moving is in my heart, and it is painful, exhausting, slow-going movement.  But God tells me that He is in these circumstances and His plan for me is good.  My goal isn’t to be good enough or better than…it is to be the woman He created me to be, and I can do that only by keeping my gaze fixed firmly on Him.  

God Will Know...

There were signs on the door of the Adoration building when I parked my van to pick the kids up.  My vision is not, ahem, what it used to be, so I walked up to the stoop to have a closer look.  An elderly couple was walking to the car, and they thought perhaps I didn’t know the code to get in. 

“Would you like us to open the door for you?”  I would guess both were in their upper eighties.  Just getting to the car was a laborious process, so turning around to let me in amounted to a generous offer.

I told them I was curious about the Catholic concept of adoration.  “What does it look like?  What do you do?”  I said I was exploring the idea from my own Protestant perspective.

“Well the Catholics invented adoration hundreds of years before the Protestants came up with it!”  His wife swatted his arm.  Feisty, this one.  I decided not to share that I knew quite a bit about church history…mine and his. 

The wife was soft-spoken and kind.  She murmured a few words about their experience.  He chimed in.  “It is so peaceful.  So moving.  Such precious moments with God.”  His animated face and eyes visibly softened when he spoke of it.  It was an experience that obviously impacted him on a physical level.  “You should go in sometime and try it.”

I was surprised he extended the offer to my Protestant self.  “Is it OK for me to do that?  Even though I’m not Catholic?”  I distinctly remembered the unfortunate experience when I attempted to take communion at that same church.  I say “attempted” because the priest chased me down and took it away. 

“Well God will know you’re not Catholic.”  His wife swatted him again.  I decided not to tell him that I didn’t think God would care.  His eyes twinkled a bit.  “But the code is 2205.”

So there you go.  Funny how God invites you to adore Him.

The Sleep Prayer

If I had to point to one thing that has consistently weakened my prayer life in the last five years, it would be the sleep prayer.  You moms of littles know what I’m talking about: Dear God, I haven’t slept more than an hour in four days, seven hours, and twenty-three minutes.  My husband sleeps peacefully through every single cry, and reminds me that I’m the one who wanted these kids anyway if I wake him up.  I have to work/take care of other littles/both in the morning, and I’m quite certain death is right around the corner if my head doesn’t find a pillow stat.  Please, please, please, give me some grace and let this kid sleep. 

How many times did I pray that in the months of colic when my dad had just died and the tidal wave of change that came with parenting had knocked me clean off my feet.  Or when I was pregnant with Caleb and couldn’t miss a day of work because I needed those days for maternity leave, but of course Eli had fevers/cut teeth/inexplicably wanted his mama.  Violet isn’t exactly a great sleeper either, and I’m wondering if perhaps the sleeping through the night thing is just a sham perpetuated by people who aren’t parents.  Anyway, in all the nights that I’ve prayed/begged/cried to God for help, I can’t remember a single time when God has actually given me sleep.  Not a single one.  Sure, it came eventually…nights down the road.  But eventually I just quit asking, because when I ask and don’t receive, I find myself questioning the God I claim to believe in.  It is just easier to believe and not ask.  As I rocked a feverish Violet last night, I found myself whispering, “I frankly don’t know why I’m asking you to heal her, because it seems like my prayers bounce right off the ceiling.  But you know, maybe if you’re in the mood you can knock this fever down because I need to be back at work on Wednesday.  And because I hate seeing her so miserable on her birthday.”  Inspiring stuff, that prayer.  I know.

This whole question of what to do when God doesn’t visibly show up looms large in my life right now.  Why do some people have these amazing stories of faith where they pray and (Boom!) God shows up?  And why do my own prayers have such a checkered history?  Certainly I can point to times in my life where God intervened and circumstances changed in ways I couldn’t imagine.  But I can also point to times when nothing happened for years…if ever.  Sometimes the reason for His silence becomes clear, but often it doesn’t.  So am I asking for things outside of God’s will?  How can I tell if I’m misinterpreting God’s leading?  And how can I step out in faith if there’s only a fifty/fifty chance of God coming through? 

I don’t know.

I am in my fourth week back to work.  I finally got my first paycheck and I can’t deny the relief of bringing in enough to live on.  But Violet has been sick for three weeks now, and currently she’s playing around with a fever of 103.  I already used the half a sick day I had left over from last year, and it is clear I can’t take her to daycare tomorrow.  If God wants me back at work, why didn’t he provide a care situation where my kids wouldn’t be sick 360 days a year?  I did ask for that.  If He doesn’t want me back at work, why didn’t He give my husband the promotion he earned months ago?  Or provide an opportunity for me to make a living from home?  Was that call, that pull towards the work of writing just my imagination?  Why couldn’t I find any open doors?  Why should I keep asking?  Knocking?  Seeking?  Hearing silence is demoralizing, and I can’t decide if I should blame myself or God.

But I’ve decided to keep asking: for financial provision so that I can focus more on raising this tiny tribe of children God has given me.  For a way to make a living from my words.  For a healing in my marriage that I’m fairly certain is impossible.  Why?  Because my Savior told me to keep asking.  Because He has given me promises and asked me to trust them.  Because my faith is more than seeking answers to prayer; it is obeying my Father who professes over and over again that He loves me.  Because mustering the courage to keep asking is the muscle behind my faith, and it needs a work out.  (So do my abs, but that's a different post.)

I have to tell my kids “no” sometimes all the freakin’ time.  It doesn’t mean that I don’t love them…it just means that I see a bigger picture and I want to give them the best gift I can give them.  I know that if they have a third cupcake, the wave of sugar in their systems will carry them straight to the type of behavior that puts little boys in time-outs for the next three days.  All they know is that there's still a purple cupcake left over from Violet's party.  I flat out beg them to trust me.  To believe that I am good.  They struggle...because they can see the cupcake and not the future.  Today, in these frustrating moments, God invites me to trust him.  To believe that He is good.  I need to respond by adoring Him: by affirming the truth of who He is…even though I can’t see it.  I suspect it is no accident that daycare is right smack next to the a building marked "adoration" and used by parish members for that very purpose.  It is my daily reminder to press into the goodness of God.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.  Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.  You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”  Jeremiah 29:11-13

God, thank you for making plans – good plans – for me.  Thank you for being a God who cares about my future and who wants me to have hope.  Thank you for hearing me when I call.  Please help me to see you, because I am seeking you with my whole heart.