U is for Undeserving

So, this is the truth. My kid's rooms are a mess. Sadly, I assume the "three little words" that my children heard most often, as they lived through the teenage years were not, "I love you" but rather, "Clean your room". It's part of having children, this training. It's part of being the parent, this exampling. And, quite honestly, while I have done well in some areas, training my children to keep a tidy room is not something that I could teach a webinar on. 

That being said, today is my son's 17th birthday, so when he returns home from school, his room will be clean. For many years now, on or near my children's birthdays, I have given them the gift of a clean room. While they are at school (because this can only be done in their absence) I enter the room with a trash can and a box for Goodwill.

The whole tradition started when they were young children and I knew that they would be having friends coming to our house for a Birthday Party or a Sleepover. I certainly didn't want to end up having to keep a child belonging to someone else, due to my inability to locate said child in my offspring's messy room. And, now, my children embrace it! They don't like to do the work of cleaning out the closet, or sifting through the trash, but when they arrive home, they embrace the serenity their newly uncluttered domain provides.  So, once a year...thisis a priceless gift I can provide.

Stepping into my son's personal disaster, I wonder, "Did his XBOX explode?"

His floor and his closet look as if his latest war game managed to come to life. I should feel relieved that my youngest was able to survive such a battle. But, quite honestly, I don't find myself filled with a sense of wonder and joy as I look at this mess. In one corner I find a bag full of trash, near that I find what appears to be an old lunch sack. I unroll the brown paper and spy something black, "Is that a banana?" 

I begin to get irritated at the things that I find, and I suddenly move away from the heart of  Gift Giver to the mind of the Task Master:

"Why am I doing this? Next year, he will be an adult. An adult! He should keep his room better than this! Someone who makes such a mess is undeserving of this gift. Undeserving of me spending my time doing what I've asked him to do on so many occasions!" 

Ah...undeserving. I've lived in that shadow. I've felt the truth of that word spread across the darkest parts of my "me". And, with the thought of that "me", that has depended on the Grace of the Father, I realize, we are all quite undeserving of Him cleaning our messes.  I think of my life; I try to keep my room clean of jealousy and envy. I try to rid myself of fear and doubt. Using a dust rag, I've eliminated some of the film that clouds my mind, but within a short time the dust settles again. But, the Father comes in and cleans up my room. He doesn't get angry or call me undeserving of His time. Of His life. 

 How wonderful it would have been to have heard this message as a teenager.

And, now, I think of my friend who heads up an All Girl's Conference, Father's Eyes, based in Southern California. In planning for 2012, they have decided that they will be celebrating the work that God does to transform our "junk" into something BEAUTIFUL. I think of the theme she has shared...A Beautiful Mess. I am suddenly quite thankful for my friend who works hard for months to plan, organize and facilitate this event to share God's truth with these teenage girls. His words are not the command, "Clean your room", but rather a reminder, "You are forgiven". 

It's by God's grace that He saved me and cleaned up my mess, so I readjust my mind to align with the heart that started the task, and I find ways to enjoy my son's beautiful mess.

Tongue Twisters and Other Secrets

Since moving to the foothills of California, I have been making a lot of new friends. Three of my new friends are named Shawna, Shanda, and Shannon. No, they are not triplets. I cannot count how many times I have called Shannon by the name Shawna or vise versa. Sometimes when I am with them I begin with the "Shhh..." and have to concentrate as I am choosing a name to not say some bad other "Sh.." word. Also, quite often when relaying stories to my family about my day, someone will interrupt me and say, "Wait, Shanda or Shannon?" It's all quite confusing and I am not sure I can forgive their mothers for doing this to me. (Because in my world--on my sitcom-- I am the star, right?) However, because none of them has offered to change their names to Angelina or Brooke, I have to persist in my attempt to say the right name and not stumble over my tongue that is often twisted into something that resembles a Wetzle Pretzle.

This is not the only way my tongue can get tied in knots, I have been fighting another "tongue-tied-twisted-sister-spectacle" for quite some time. I have been feeling the urge to share something with my husband, and I have been fighting this urge because of fear and embarrassment. I would think about opening up to him and sharing this secret, but the shame of what was going on inside of me felt more powerful, so I would convince myself that I didn't need to tell him. I would argue with myself that I could overcome this internal battle without bringing him into it. But this "secret" was like a dark, menacing shadow that was following my every move.

There were mornings that I would be in the worship service at our church and I would be singing songs and even with my eyes closed I could see the shadow there--watching me. Laughing at me. And I would sense the Spirit of God telling me. "I am the Light, that is a shadow. Darkness cannot cover Light. Come into the Light." I knew from having a relationship with the Lord, that He would never prompt me to do something I couldn't handle, but using my tongue to speak up and tell my husband my secret required a certain intimacy that I didn't feel I could give. Writing to strangers and exposing myself comes easily and feels safe, opening up to my husband with spoken words as we sat on the edge of our bed would be one of the more scarier things I could imagine. And so, I went on for years holding this in and there were nights that I believed the shadow would, most assuredly, win this battle.

Last night, in a moment of unbridled abandonment, I shared my secret with my husband. As we were standing in the middle of our kitchen, on either side of the open dishwasher, the words began to fall off my tongue, skip over the dirty coffee mugs and land on his ears. I know the power to keep my tongue from becoming twisted, like a 10-year-old Olympic gymnast, had to have come from the Lord.

What happened next was completely unpredictable.

Every portrait in our home heard what I said and responded with astonishment. Pictures of family, hung on our walls, heard my "confession" and turned their heads in disgust. The picture of my Grandparents, taken in the early 1940's looked completely different, as it now showed them only from the back. They had turned their bodies completely around in the photograph to avoid looking at me. A snapshot of my Mother-In-Law holding my newborn baby, which was taken in 1989, now showed only the back of my sweet Mother-in-Law as she turned the baby girl away from me to protect her from the horror of what I shared.

The carpet responded next. Suddenly, as if on cue, every strand of carpet in our home unraveled itself from the burlap which it had been sewn. The strands of carpet began to slither out of the house. Like little polyester worms, they began to crawl across the floor and squeeze under the door frame, to escape being in my presence. Once outside they began to fling themselves into the swimming pool like lemmings running off a cliff.

The carpet strands began to gossip, the way carpet does, and informed the chlorinated water in the swimming pool of my secret. The pool water, remembering our days of summer and the hours we had shared in the sunshine, felt betrayed. In its anger, the water began to fling itself out of the concrete hole, over the fence and into the neighbor's yard.

I mean, I think that is what happened. Or, maybe, just maybe, what happened was that my husband reached out and took my hand. And just held it. My tongue stopped speaking and I remembered the sweet words from Song of Solomon:

"Your lips, my bride, drip honey; Honey and milk are under your tongue..."

And while my husband did not say this aloud to me, I felt this truth in his hand.

They were the sweetest words I'd ever heard, my heart could barely take it in

Like water offered to the lips of a tired and thirsty man

'Cause it's a tangled web I've woven and I don't know all the reasons

But it amazes me to wake up to Your mercy every morning

For the sake of never making the waves

I kept my secrets to myself

And no one ever really knew the darker shadows of my heart

But I will be a witness that there's nothing in me dark enough

The power of forgiveness cannot rescue from the deep

So, I'm standing here and spinning round in the fields of freedom

And I'm still alive and reaching out and I can feel the healing

'Cause you say, Come on out, come on out

Out in the open

Come on out, come on out

Into the Light

There is no jury, there is no judge

Ready and waiting are the steady arms of love

~Amy Grant, Out In The Open

My adulterous kitten is on Facebook

I had just fallen asleep when my phone went off at 11:57 PM. I saw that it was my daughter calling, so I answered the way all Mother’s do at the stroke of midnight,

“What’s wrong?”

The answer, that came in the form of a question, threw me for a loop.

“Mom, where’s Luna?”

Luna Lovegood is our kitten. She came to live with our family in May as a birthday present to my son whose pet cat, Max, had been murdered by a passing car on Christmas Eve. The reason I say he was murdered is because Max was the head of the Cat Mafia on the street where we live and rarely does anyone in the Mafia just die. It was definitely a hit.

Now when the my daughter asked me about the kitten’s whereabouts, I had images of having to go back out into the street and claim the little body of my sweet baby kitty. I was immediately awake and alarmed.

When I fumbled out some sort of response, my daughter said that one of her friends had seen something on Facebook about a kitten that she was sure was our Luna.

**Now, before I lead into the part of the story where I say that I went to the front door and called for Luna, please do not judge me for letting my cats go outside at night. We will just end up debating the issue and in the end, I will still let them out. It’s how I’ve done cats for 43 years.

Opening the door, I called for her in her customary Luna cat call, “Luna Baby Kitty!”

Across the lawn she came with her little bell ringing to announce her arrival. She bounced up into my arms and I brought her inside. I poured her some Kitten Chow and I sent a text message off to my protective daughter to let her know that all was well in the cat world. End of story.

Wrong.

Ten minutes later my daughter sent a picture to my phone. On the screen there was a picture of Luna. On Facebook. With my neighbor?

He is sitting inside his house and holding my sweet little kitten and the caption says, “My neighbors cat who seems to like me and my sister more than her own family”

My heart began to pound in my chest. What did he say about my kitten? How could he possibly infer that my kitten likes him and his sister more than her own family? I became so angry, I had thoughts of going right over and knocking on his door and saying, “No. She loves me. She comes when I call her! She purrs when I hold her! She sleeps on my desk! And don't take my cat into your house! ”

Then, I remember. She is a cat. She is a dumb cat. She is simply an animal who is driven by instinct and will not have to answer before the Lord when she dies. He is a man. He is a young man who seems most of the times that I see him, pretty lonely.

It’s kind of strange to think that the simple act of him posting a picture of himself with my cat could have ramifications in either direction. I can withhold the cat. I could start to keep her inside and never let her go out to chase lizards. I could deny him access to her by giving her very little time outside and watching where she goes when she’s out.

Or, I can let her go. Let her spend time with his family and look for opportunities to talk to them more often. Reach out to their family and find ways to show them love. I can use this moment to remember that God will use just about anything to get my attention and to draw me near to the cross.

Can God use my cat to bring me closer to my neighbor? Yes, I believe He can.

Can I allow my neighbor to say something slightly questionable about me on Facebook? Yes. I believe I can.

Little Butterfly

We have all done things that we regret. Almost nightly I fall into bed and while the pillow is still cool, I am already wondering about half of the day’s choices. Sometimes the decisions are small and seemingly insignificant. 

"Ah, I should have tipped the barista...why didn't I walk after dinner?..did I really just spend 36 dollars on hair conditioner?" But, sometimes the regrets are bigger. Sometimes they linger for years and left unattended--they don't go away; they seem to come back and attack you when you are least likely to be able to defend yourself.

Facebook has opened up a whole world of connection to a lot of mid-lifers and we are looking at our choices once again. Some of our choices were clearly for the better, but, some are a little cloudier. Names are more recognizable than faces, and our memories have altered the truth of the time. We remember small details with large definition, never realizing that others will remember things differently.

Recently, thanks to the big blue f, I have been able to reconnect with friends from High School. Some of the women, who I once was a cheerleader with in the 80's, met for a day out on the ocean to do some kayaking. As we rowed our little kayaks along the harbor we all had so many questions for one another. We had each heard a little bit about an old classmate--I had the least information, so I had the most to learn.

After an hour of rowing, I finally asked about "that boy". He wasn't a boy I was in love with as a teenager. We weren't an item in any way. I never even dated him. He was more of a mistake that led to years of heartache. He was a boy who asked for a ride home from a party, which led to an unplanned pregnancy. I was 17, a few months away from graduation, and pregnant with a baby from a boy I barely knew. 

I chose the path of abortion. 

My mom took me and I had a second trimester abortion on a Saturday morning. I was able to go back to school on Monday morning and make plans for Prom and Grad night with all my peers. My little heart was broken, but I wouldn't even begin to feel the pain from that break for many years. I really expected to hear that the "boy" was living a life similar to most of the guys from high school; working a job he never intended, attending his kids sports events and maybe on his second marriage. 

What I got was, for some reason, a little more unusual. He had gone on to marry a former sitcom star and they had just recently had a baby. The star and her baby were even in People magazine. I am not sure why this was confusing, but I became acutely aware that I was feeling new thoughts about my little unborn baby.

Their new little baby was the 1/2 brother to my little unborn baby. For some reason, knowing who he married and knowing that I used to watch her on TV every week and knowing that we were in a way--connected--made me feel strange. 

Why? 

I am not really sure, perhaps because in a spiritual way our kids are connected. According to the real world, it's really not a connection, and I'm not going to become a stalker. It's just a reminder that our world is so small. It's also a memory of a little baby who never had a chance. He was conceived at the wrong time to the wrong parents.

For a long time I have been aware of the fact that my world would be different had he been born. My husband was in Bible College when we met and in 1985 a single mom with a 2-year-old was not the best choice for a church Pastor. 

But, today I am thinking about how the WHOLE world would have been altered by his birth. Anyone who has ever seen Ashton Kutcher's movie "The Butterfly Effect" knows that changes don't always work out for the best. I am not going to fool myself into believing that it would all be perfect if I had chosen to not have an abortion. I know that I can't look back or I will just keep tripping over my feet in the here and now. I also know that while I may wish I had made different choices these are the choices I did make and they are part of what makes me who I am.  

One summer day, about 14 years ago, I was watching my {then} 3-year-old son learn to swim and I had a fleeting thought about the baby that was never born in 1983. I wondered if I would have been as good of a mom to him as I was to my son. And suddenly, a light came on, a light of love and forgiveness told me, "Yes." I am who I am, and I was me along time ago.

I would have loved him and watched him with pride during his swim lessons, read him Dr. Seuss and eventually would have fought with him about cleaning his room and doing his Algebra homework. I would have snuck in his room to read his text messages and kissed him on his forehead while he slept. But that's not the point anymore. My little butterfly didn't get to come into this world to help me become a better person, but he was still here inside of me and he was still able to help me become the best mom I could be. The best person I could be. He was just a flutter, only here for a moment and his effect still lasts. The changes were within a teenage girl who grew up to be a little more humble, way more approachable and always longing for God's attainable Grace.

Linking today for On My Heart Tuesdays with Shanda @ A Pause on the Path