That Mom is Me

3
Feb

I am that mom.

I am the one who emailed the teacher to verify the start time of the event at school…and still showed up thirty minutes late.

I am that mom — the one who didn’t RSVP to the classmate’s birthday party until the morning it was scheduled to happen.

I am the mom who went to register my child for the enrichment class two days after the deadline because I didn’t take time to read the informational letter. I’m also the one who apologized my way in.

I’m that mom, the one who got the phone call from the kindergarten teacher asking if I’d be there soon. It was Mom’s Day, and my daughter was waiting for me. I walked in and all the moms were sitting on the floor, each one with a child next to them or on a lap. All except for my daughter who sat at the foot of the teacher while she read a book to the class. My daughter. Alone.

I’m the mom whose kid had toothpaste down the front of his shirt, the one whose kid wore boots at school all day long because he forgot shoes and I didn’t think to check his backpack. When he got home, his socks were soggy.

I’m that mom — the one who thought she had enough time to get milk and bread from Target. I was still a few minutes from home when I watched my child’s bus come towards me on the road. Again, my daughter. Again, alone.

I’m the mom who had to air out the house because the stove burner was left on for hours. The flame had gone out, but the knob was still set on simmer, natural gas seeping into the kitchen, out to the dining room and down the hallway.

This all happened last week.

I’m that mom, and I know it.

/////

Have you seen me? You know you have. You know there’s someone like me, someone who is that mom to you.

That one mom who always seems to come charging in late, disheveled, discombobulated.

The one who makes you feel think, ‘Well, I may not have it all together, but at least I’m not like her.’

Do you know how much it sucks to be that mom?

A lot. It sucks a lot.

http://mrg.bz/k2aG5h

Contrary to how it might appear, I’m not a total flake. I’m not checked out, I’m not “smoking too much weed”, I’m not a train wreck, not a disaster. And I’m not a bad mom.

I’m just in a rough patch.

I have enough personal family gunk going on that I have to prioritize what can receive my attention. Some things have to go.

Having never been a detail-lover, I now find they are the first things to escape me. They are de-prioritized without me even trying. And those are just the details I know I forgot — how many have passed me by without me even feeling the breeze they made? I’ll probably find out later that I only knew the half of how badly I was screwing up.

In the midst of this, I am trying to take care of myself as well, trying to make good choices and gauge what ways I can be kind to myself each day. I’m exercising, I’m brushing my teeth, I’m even laughing sometimes. Maybe I’m laughing too loudly, maybe it sounds a tiny bit hysterical, but it still counts.

I don’t need help feeling guilty about how I’m falling short of where I want to be. I can administer enough guilt on my own.

I have to extend grace to myself, the grace I would want to show someone else, but it’s hard. It’s hard to be nice to myself, because I see the ways I can’t do it all, the way I want to manage it alone but can’t. I know what I can usually take care of, and I see all the ways I can’t do it now.

I feel weak, and I hate feeling weak.

I feel looked down on, but as far as I know, the only one looking down on me is ME.

/////

Today I’m trying to give myself enough space to move around my life without knocking things over.

I’m going to give myself extra time to get done the things that usually take me less time but now seem to require more effort.

I’ll feed myself well.

I’ll let myself make mistakes and I’ll see them as mistakes, not as failings.

I’ll ask for help.

I’ll be to myself the person I’d want to be for someone else.

I’ll try to look for glory, for as my friend Kelly wrote, “Glory is most at home in the common, if you have eyes to see.” (You can read her post here: http://bit.ly/1j6DhxJ )

When I come out of this rough patch, as I know I will eventually, I will work to remember what it was like to be that mom. And when I see her, the one for whom the burden of everyday seems almost to much to handle, I’ll pray that she can be gentle and patient with herself, that she’ll see how she can be good to herself in the midst of struggle. And if I can, I will let her know that she’s not the only one.

Eventually, there comes a time when we all are that mom.

Fragile and Sturdy

29
Jan

This month I found a fierce group of women who spur on one another, who support one another, who express themselves creatively. This post comes out of a prompt they offered. Here’s the link if you’d like to find out more: http://www.thestorysessions.com/subscribe/

Unfold

tissue paper

butterfly wings

poppy petals

pie crust rolled thin

Bible pages

confidence

risk

vulnerability

heart

desolation

////

http://mrg.bz/CTbZGX

////

I’m tempted to retreat from the day, close in on myself,

crawl back in bed,

detach my brain from my heart,

put a screen in front of my face to dull my mind.

Bad news on top of our new norm pushes me back

away from the resignation, the adaptation I thought I had achieved.

I would rather —

but we don’t get to ‘rather’ and we don’t get to escape, not really.

It comes back to us,

in waves,

in song,

in tear-filled eyes at the grocery store for no. apparent. reason.

////

Even though it is scary and unwieldy,

I try to spread my arms wide,

unfold from my place crouched in fear and self-protection,

where I duck from embarrassment and weakness.

I stand up, stiff and tingling, vertigo around my edges, heart pounding in my ears.

This is real.

This is life.

Life contains in it death.

That I have avoided much of this type of pain is a miracle unto itself.

That I have good men in my life who modeled to me love, commitment and joy, this is a gift.

So I unfold and stand straight to absorb the full weight that could descend with their loss,

until I have to bend beneath the heaviness of the burden, though I willingly bear it

because

it is the weight of love.

November Book Club: Chapter Three (Part One)

31
Dec

Corcovado jesus (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

Yes yes, I do realize that it is the end of DECEMBER and here I am working on a book club from November. That’s just the way things go sometimes, right? If I should retitle this “December Book Club” that would only work for like a few more hours, so that’s a dead end.

Peter Enn’s book, Telling God’s Story: A Parents’ Guide to Teaching the Bible, is what we’re working through and chapter three is when the author starts giving specifics about what to teach to whom and when.

In most Sunday School settings, there are lots of lessons about Old Testament characters, in addition to stories about Jesus. Enns argues that “the proper foundation is now what it has been since the first Christmas: Jesus.” He makes the point that “the Bible as a whole is going somewhere, and that “somewhere” is actually a “someone”.”

Before you think Enns is suggesting that we focus only on the New Testament, as was done to the exclusion of the Old Testament in church circles for many years, he is making the case that for our youngest children, we begin with and focus on the person of Jesus. He says “the apostles didn’t start with the background stuff. They got right to the point and talked about Jesus.” As children get older and more mature, then it is time to address the Old Testament and larger context of the New Testament.

This resonates for me because of my years as a volunteer in various churches’ children’s and youth ministries, as well as my time developing curriculum and leading children’s and junior high/senior high ministry. Kids in the earliest grades see things in black and white, and understand concrete ideas most readily. This changes as they get older, but in terms of the focus for grade 1-5, Enns stresses the validity of building a foundation of Jesus and worrying about Old Testament historical context yada yada as children get older.

One thing that makes me bristle is the focus on depravity in children in evangelical circles. We are so concerned that children “come to Jesus” that we sometimes resort to scare tactics rather than focusing on the freedom, direction, purpose and fulfillment Christ brings while here on earth. The focus is so heavily weighed towards the hereafter that it’s no wonder why people tend towards “fire insurance” (a terribly crude term) and a once-and-done mentality rather than seeing how a commitment to following Jesus plays out in our every day decisions. That’s probably why I love this line so much:

What should not be emphasized is the child’s miserable state of sin and need for a savior. …We must remember that our children’s salvation is not our work, it is the work of the Spirit. …To introduce children to the wrath of God right at the beginning of their lives, without the requisite biblical foundation and before the years of emotional maturity, can actually distort their view of God.

That’s not to say that even within the life of Jesus there aren’t many intense, adult-rated moments. Using common sense, it should be obvious that age-appropriateness is of the upmost importance. However, in my experience, common sense and age-appropriate sensitivity isn’t always used when approaching the Bible. People often fear they’ll be “watering down the Word of God” by leaving out certain parts or focusing on some things over others (although I wonder if they’d be so cavalier with the things in Bible of a sexual nature). People think they should start with Genesis and work their way through the Bible, book by book. Have you ever tried doing that? Let’s just say that most folks find their eyes glazing over by the time they get a chapter or two into the books of the law.

Enns takes a logical approach that considers child development and the overarching movement of the Bible narrative. It is the person of Jesus that draws people, it is the stories of how He treated children, how He related to women, how He reached out to outcasts and misfits — these are the stories that draw us to Him. By letting the life of Jesus speak for itself, and by studying the impact He had on the lives of the Apostles, we set a solid foundation on which they can delve into the depths of the Old Testament, historical background and prophetic fulfillment of Jesus’ life.

This chapter has two more sections, one that deals with middle grades and one that deals with high school ages. I think these areas need their own review, so I’m going to lump them together into a future post.

What is your take on this different way of teaching the Bible to our youngest children? Does it seem like a good approach to you? What objections do you have to it?

British Library Add. MS 59874 Ethiopian Bible – Matthew’s Gospel (Ge’ez script) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

November Book Club, Chapter Two

3
Dec

The title of this post is not a typo.

The Book Club I joined with began in November, so I’m sticking with that as a name, even if it doesn’t quite fit anymore. Go with me on this, okay?

****

Have you ever had someone else complete your thought? Or maybe someone said the exact thing you had felt but never could articulate? Maybe someone was able to succinctly sum up a series of ideas you had? It is a bizarre feeling, to have the sense that someone tapped into your brainwaves and put them out into the world. When it happens, all at once I can feel elated, overwhelmed, dejected and as if I’ve found a like-minded friend.

Elated because finally someone else said what needed to be said. How wonderful to feel like you’ve been heard.
Overwhelmed because sometimes that person is able to take your thought to its logical conclusion or application and the implications require a paradigm shift I might not be ready to implement.
Dejected because why couldn’t I communicate that complex thought so eloquently?

This has been a year of reading books by brave, creative people who have put into words the stirrings I’ve felt for many years, a discontent with simple answers and an unwillingness to engage with questions.

Peter Enns‘ Telling God’s Story is becoming one of those books.

Yes, I know that I’m only supposed to be writing about the second chapter (which is long overdue by any standard — I was supposed to be doing this through November and here we are in December!) but that doesn’t mean I haven’t read ahead a bit. Even though my reading took a hit in November, this is the one I’m ready to come back to. Like any good book, I’m finding it hard to put this down.

Chapter Two: What the Bible Actually Is (and Isn’t)

The chapter starts with an seemingly simplistic question: what is the Bible? This is followed by a series of other questions: what do we expect to happen when we read it? What is the Bible there for?

The author goes on to ask us to step back from that question which is most often applied to Bible reading: how does this apply to me?

Instead we are asked to look at the Bible with a different question in our minds:

“What do we have the right to expect from God’s word as a book written in an ancient world?”

Enns asks us to consider how Jesus’ existence as a human does not detract from his being the Son of God. He then goes on to assert that the Bible does exactly what God wanted it to do, even using expressions and ideas of the ancient world. The anchoring of the Bible in ancient times does not take away from the inerrancy of it, nor does it keep it from “doing exactly what God wants it to do.”

The Bible is Not an Owner’s Manual

Bummer, huh?

In some ways it would be so easy if the Bible did spell out every little thing for us. Some people believe it does — seriously, there are a lot of people out there who have been taught that the Bible IS an owner’s manual and that on every single thing that we should do or not do, every attitude, every current issue, examples of applicable/transferable rules, attitudes, and lessons can be found.

I tend to lean this way, even though I know there are limits.

Enns suggests that “we need to learn the kinds of issues the Bible addresses so we can learn to ask the questions of the Bible that the Bible is meant to answer.” He then gives us the disappointing news that “what is not being addressed are specifically modern situations.” He says that when we read the New Testament in particular, we see “a portrait being painted for us of what a life in Christ looks like.”

We’re getting near the end of the chapter at this point and Enns uses a personal example to illustrate his statement that “…I want to introduce you to what I think is the single most important biblical concept for living a Christian life, not only today, but during any era: wisdom.” Because the Bible doesn’t say specifically DON’T EVER GO TO ANY R-RATED MOVIES Enns must use wisdom when parenting his son and when deciding what to say when his son asks if he can watch the movie Saving Private Ryan. His answer must be based on wisdom; wisdom from knowing his son, knowing about the movie, knowing Biblical admonishments and exhortations, and wisdom from learning to trust the Holy Spirit’s voice.

This is the paragraph that stood out to me most from the chapter:

…if we learn to hear what the Spirit is saying through these ancient yet transcendent writings, we will see that the Bible is much more than we bargained for. The Bible is not a book primarily devoted to what we should do. Instead it is devoted to telling us who we are and how our behaviors should reflect that reality.

Rather than just having a religion or a faith-by-rote, isn’t it true that we all wish to have a faith that is an identity? I’d want my family to live out our faith in actions, attitudes and self-worth even if we can’t name all the books of the Bible in order.

Some people get so hampered by wanting to do exactly the letter of the law of what they think the Bible spells out that they forget the spirit of the law, the reason guidelines exist and what they were originally put there to accomplish. The result from this is often a rigid, fear based faith that is spindly and brittle. I believe God has something more for us, something much more robust, verdant and lush, filled with joy and courage. I think that’s where Enns is headed in this book, and I’m excited to see where he takes us.

Do you expect to find every answer to every question you have in the Bible? Do you think it is dangerous to consider the idea that every answer might not be there? What expectations do you have of the Bible?

Teaching my kids the Truth about Heaven

8
Nov

Today’s post is a lazy (or pragmatic) woman’s attempt to kill two birds with one stone. Lisa-jo Baker’s Five Minute Friday has become part of the rhythm around here, and I’ve enjoyed the community involved there. This month I’m also participating in an online book club organized by Abi Bechtel. We’re reading Telling God’s Story by Peter Enns. Therefore, today’s post is based on the word prompt “Truth” and the first thing that came to mind was informed by book club, so I’m hybridizing the two.

Set the timer to five minutes.

Ready.

Set.

GO.

Two nights ago my son asked me about heaven.

He asked if it was really gold.

He said he used to feel scared of it, but now he feels better because he read in a kids booklet that there’s no crying or sickness there. This was a relief.

Then he did it. He asked what happens to the people who don’t have Jesus in their heart when they die. Do they go to heaven?

I want to be truthful, but I want to give him security. How can I do both when I feel like there is such a broad cannon of interpretation within Christendom? How can I tell him the questions in my own heart about the strict interpretation I was trained to accept? How do I tell him what is true?

The words of a former professor, Greg Boyd, popped into my head. I studied with him while at Bethel for more than one class, but his World Religions class was the scene of this truth bomb. I have come back to it again and again.

He said something similar to this, but this is not an exact quote…

Imagine you are a beggar with a loaf of bread. Another beggar comes to you holding a loaf of bread. It is moldy and dry. The beggar is breaking off bits and eating them. You say to him, “That bread may make you sick. It may not. But I can tell you for sure that the bread I have is good. It is life giving and you will not get sick from it.” And you share your bread with the man.

It goes along with the concept of there being a wideness in God’s mercy, which I love.

So what did I tell my son?

I told him that many many people who love the Lord have studied the Bible for years and years. These people have come up with different ideas about what it says. I gave him a couple short examples of what I meant.

I told him it is up to God to decide about who hangs out in heaven with Him, and He wants everyone, but that the simplest, most straightforward, reading exactly what the Bible says, is by asking Jesus into your heart…which he’s already done.

It’s not a fantastic answer.

Bread (Photo credit: CeresB)

Is it true?

Yes, sort of.

See what I mean?

STOP

*****

Sorry if this was hard to follow today. It was hard to corral my thoughts into a linear, succinct form.

May I ask how you interpret some of the hard, fast rules of entrance into the pearly gates? If you are a person of faith, how has your understanding changed from when you were a child? How do you handle the Big Questions of faith with your kids?

Sunday School and November Book Club

29
Oct

High Bank, Denby. Derelict Methodist Sunday School Building. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Most of my life has been punctuated by Sunday School.

There were the many years when I participated in it.

There were the years when I was the teacher.

Now there are these years when my children go each week.

And it never really occurred to me to ask “why” about Sunday School until recently.

My dad, a retired ordained minister in the Covenant church, made the comment recently that Sunday School is a modern creation born of a desire to provide a place for children to learn to read since they were working every other day of the week. (Here’s a link to get the short version of Sunday School’s development: http://bit.ly/17uv3sB)

As someone who has grown up in the church, worked in various youth programs, and been responsible to create curriculum for those programs, I know that the regular idea is to make lessons that show God’s acitivity in the world, and use the scriptures to teach character lessons.

I wonder if I was coming at it all wrong.

In my conversation with my dad, it came up that you really don’t want to use a lot of “Bible Heroes” as such because they were a mess. Lessons ought to focus on how many mistakes these people made and yet God was able to accomplish great things through them, because He is great.

Instead, we usually focus (for example) on how David was “a man after God’s own heart” and gloss over his adultery and scheming, including arranging to have his competition sent to the front lines in order to get him killed.

Dude was sketchy at best.

Here’s another example. At our church a few months ago they wanted to teach about friendship so for some reason they chose the story of Job. If you’re familiar with the story, Job goes through some really hard trials. His friends hang with him for a while, but then they basically tell him to throw in the towel.

The lesson taught only focused on the first part of the story, and happily the teacher chose not to include the detail that God allowed Satan access to Job. My first and third graders were not ready to deal with that information. It was a poorly planned lesson that pick and chose details for their illustration of the point the creators were going for, regardless of whether that was the point of the actual Bible story.

All of this is to say that there might be a better way to go about teaching our kids about the Bible.

In the month of November I’m going to participate in an online book club. The book we’re going to read is Peter Enn’s Telling God’s Story (http://bit.ly/1coKmHn). I haven’t read any his books before, but it sounds like this book has a different take on teaching the Bible to kids.

The premise of Telling God’s Story is that for 1-4^th graders the focus should be on learning all about Jesus, then 5-8^th graders focus on the overall narrative of Israel, and high schoolers focus on the Bible’s historical context. I’m really interested in exploring a new approach to valuing the Bible and teaching it in a way that honors it.

I’ll be blogging about book club, and the fabulous woman hosting it is Abi. She’s a riot and is on a really interesting journey that I resonate with in many ways. If you’re interested in reading along with us via her blog, you can find it here: http://bit.ly/1aQVwOB It would be fun to do this together!

What are your memories of Sunday School? Was there a point when you started having friends there, rather than just merely sitting next to other kids? What’s your view of Sunday School now?

Sunday School, Chicago, IL, USA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Five Minute Friday: Together

25
Oct

It’s Five Minute Friday and the word prompt is “together” but what came out spun off in it’s own directions. I don’t know how to explain this except to say when I saw the prompt I immediately thought about how lately I’ve been thinking about starting a “small group” through my church. The only thing is, the more I think about it, the more confined I feel by that definition — that a small group needs be organized under the umbrella of a church. I didn’t used to function that way. Maybe that was because I had the luxury of overlap between the people who were in the small group, people who were my friends, and people with whom I attended church.

Things now don’t have the same overlap.

Enough with the preamble. I’ll be interested in your reactions, so please feel free to chime in in the comments. As always, I am very grateful that you’ve taken time out from your day to read my scattered thoughts.

Deep breath.

Ready.

Set.

GO.

*****

I don’t know when I became so rigid.

Maybe it was bit by bit,

as frost settling onto the top of water

into a crust of ice

into a brittle sheet

into a thickness you drive a car across and need an auger to drill through.

Definitions matter, but not if you use the wrong ones.

A place that preaches a doctrine of small groups in the midst of being a swarm,

very little is intimate about the great multiple-gather,

multiple-site,

multiple satellite venue,

People punch tickets, hand out gold stars for attendance but gloss over how hard it is

to force foot in front of foot as that doorway approaches.

Inside you see the round table (why a round table – you can’t hear the person across from you, you’re stuck with two options of conversation and one of them is inevitably busy talking to the person on the far side of them), purses already stake out territorial plastic claims

And no one stops their sentence to greet you.

No one looks up,

No one seems to realize you’re even there.

****

STOP

Five Minute Friday: Laundry

18
Oct

How could I NOT do Five Minute Friday with a word prompt of “laundry”? I have deep and abiding opinions about laundry, about the amount of laundry, the merits of wrinkle-free materials and the smelly allergy-triggers of strongly scented detergent.

When I saw the prompt, I knew I’d be doing Five Minute Friday this week. In case you’re not familiar with it, Five Minute Friday is a fun linkup with Lisa-jo Baker. She puts up a word prompt each week and the instructions are to just go for it. Don’t edit. Don’t get locked up. Don’t over-think it, just have fun and write whatever comes to mind in five minutes. Then linkup your post with others on her site: http://lisajobaker.com It is open to anyone who wants to participate. Maybe you want to try it out?

Ready?

Set?

Go!

“A little lifting up of the heart suffices; a little remembrance of God, an interior act of adoration, even though made on the march and with sword in hand, are prayers which, short though they may be, are nevertheless very pleasing to God, and far from making a soldier lose his courage on the most dangerous occasions, bolster it. Let him then think of God as much as possible so that he will gradually become accustomed to this little but holy exercise; no one will notice it and nothing is easier than to repeat often during the day these little acts of interior adoration.”

― Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

For many years now, laundry has been a frequent chore, a nearly every day occurance.

I don’t love laundry.

But I now longer hate it.

Many years ago I tried to shift my attitude about laundry.

My husband needed clean socks, and had none because I hadn’t done the laundry.

“Wash your own darn socks,” I thought.

We had already established a sharing of household chores and laundry fell to me. It wasn’t that he was incapable or unwilling to wash his own socks. We had agreed that I would do it.

In that period, I came to realize how nice it was for him to go to his drawer as he prepared for his day, and find clean socks.

Rainbow striped toe socks worn with thong sandals (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A little thing, really.

But the reason behind the socks changed,

because I changed.

I started viewing the laundry as an unspoken act of love.

I washed the socks, dried, folded and put away the socks because I love my husband.

Socks are my little love note left in his drawer every day.

The change came when I started to think of every little thing I did as being significant and tried “doing it all as unto the Lord” like the Bible suggests. Brother Lawrence also helped. Maybe worshipping God isn’t as hard as we try to make it.

“He does not ask much of us, merely a thought of Him from time to time, a little act of adoration, sometimes to ask for His grace, sometimes to offer Him your sufferings, at other times to thank Him for the graces, past and present, He has bestowed on you, in the midst of your troubles to take solace in Him as often as you can. Lift up your heart to Him during your meals and in company; the least little remembrance will always be the most pleasing to Him. One need not cry out very loudly; He is nearer to us than we think.”
― Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

STOP.

Your comments and suggestions are always welcome — I think that by sharing, we can help each other along in our journeys. How can you be aware of God’s presence as you go about the seemingly mundane things on your to-do list today? Is being aware of God’s presence something that comes naturally to you or does it take work? I hope you have an extra awareness of Him walking alongside you as you go about your day.

I Want to Tell the Truth (but can I tell it slant?)

27
Sep

Taken from Selby Av side; 2006. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I want to be fearless and brave and bold.

I’m also a chicken.

I want to be true and tell you all the things I think about

women

church

God

relationships

loving others

living boldly

being free to be passionate and alive

But I’m also afraid I’ll hurt someone’s feelings,

That I’ll say something wrong,

That I’ll reflect badly on the people closest to me, even though my issues are my issues and I own that.

Let’s start with this:

My dad’s career was as a pastor. That shapes you a lot.

I’m also from Minnesota, a firstborn people-pleaser who has always played the role of mediator and peacekeeper.

That’s a two-fer, almost a trifecta.

I am way more steeped in evangelicalism than I ever realized as I was growing up.

I am also way more uncomfortable with it than I was growing up. Quite uncomfortable, actually.

That’s not easy to admit, because I understand the deep deep ties it creates, how someone’s entire world can be shaped by their evangelical worldview. To question that can appear as a crisis of faith.

Maybe it is.

It sure feels unsettling.

I also think there is room in my relationship with God for a wrestle-fest (“relationship with God” = evangelicalism <— see how that sneaks into stuff?).

There’s room for questions and ponderings and convictions and flying leaps from the top rope, cape flapping behind. I feel the wind rush past my face as I fly through the air, hoping to tackle God and wrastle Him to the mat so I can get some straight answers.

For now there’s only the whistling of the wind as I jump.

*****

This has become a habit around here. Every Friday I try to link up with Lisa-jo Baker’s Five Minute Friday. She offers a word prompt, people write for five minutes flat, then link their posts to her site, and the virtual potluck begins. It is open to anyone who wants to be a part of it. Here’s the link: http://lisajobaker.com Check it out!

Some faith stories have sorrow (and some don’t)

10
Sep

Every couple days I receive an email with a new post from a certain online magazine.

I signed up for it after I read some of the posts there and found a refreshing honesty and willingness to discuss the hard things in life.

Stories of harm, stories of shame, stories of self-destruction and abuse.

There were no easy answers offered, and it took great pains to avoid being preachy. Although it was informed by Christianity there was a lot of focus on negative self-image, manipulation, lonliness, pain and mistakes.

Once in a while there was a whisper of something more, an outstretching of a hand, a note delivered but no answer yet given.

And their posts are starting to make me a little crazy.

******

I know there are no easy answers.

I know that for almost all of us, growth and fulfillment come as a process over time.

That doesn’t mean I should stay where I started. We who try to follow Jesus have seasons of dormancy as well as seasons of insights and changes, but our faith will develop. We are to “be transformed by the renewing of our mind” because we are new creations in Christ. Some things change in an instant, others take a while to even notice, much less actually address.

Chronic depression or an inability to get past our history may indicate something in us that needs more attention, something that needs more intensive probing and maybe the insight of a trained professional to trace and address. Sometimes we need to seek out the help of someone other than Jesus to deal with hard things. There are things that others can tell us about ourselves that we can’t see from inside ourselves.

There’s nothing wrong with having rocky journey to faith. There’s also nothing wrong with a simple faith story, a story of knowing what Jesus offers and taking Him up on it, a legacy of coming from families who believe in Him and who make that appealing by their healthy example.

We belittle our own journey when we disparage it, when we wish to exchange it for something flashier or more dramatic.

I know there are plenty of people who have a story riddled with hardship who would have preferred to bypass the sadness, hurt or difficulty while it was happening (wouldn’t we all?) even though they might acknowledge that their journey made them who they are.

There is power in sharing story. Yes. Every person comes with a story and telling it honestly is part of claiming that we are made through mistakes and successes. Making public a story of abuse or neglect diffuses the power of secrecy that can keep us trapped in a cycle of shame. These are potentially exciting stories of redemption and transformation. But if what is shared is only the first portion, only a representation of the dark-side, are not the rest of us complicit in enabling a voyeuristic system that longs for the juicy tell-all TV magazine headline, the more scandalous the better?

Happily, last week the site included a story that focused on someone’s feelings about having a “plain” story. If you want to take a look, here’s the link: http://shar.es/ivtKK I think overall this magazine does a good job of representing the complexity of real-life faith. They often share glimmers of hope in the midst of difficulty and examples of real people wrestling with fragile situations, coming at it with a faith-informed approach that engages the gray parts of life.

I just happen to like some more frequent sunshine.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, maybe even hear some of your story. All versions (keep ’em clean, of course) are welcome here.