When You're Not OK

We moved around my first 8 years. Making ends meet, keeping cars pieced together, and finding places we’d be welcome. An apartment for a bit, with Grandma and Grandpa for awhile, with one of your friends during my Kindergarten year, then into a nicer public housing complex. 

Cashiering wasn’t your passion and neither was putting together vacuum cleaner parts in the factory. But you did what you had to do to keep me clothed and fed.

You’d read books with one of your co-workers so your brain wouldn’t atrophy from the monotony of the assembly line and have a make-shift book club over motors and threading.

You were desperate for us not to get stuck where we were, the statistics looming over us, trapping us, closing in on us, pulling us under. You fought them with a vocabulary word a day. You sacrificed so I could dance, sing, swim. Anything that might give me opportunity to break free.

An algebra tutor, science camp, Spanish camp, a trip to Washington DC to meet our Senator, delivering “Meals on Wheels” to see, no matter how bad off we were, we still had so much to be thankful for.

I got tears in my eyes watching Kevin Durant hug his mom after winning the NBA championship, knowing a little of what they felt toward each other. The almost tangible bond of survival connecting a struggling single parent and her child.

It was us against the looks of disapproval or pity. (I don’t know which I hated more.) It was us seeing the worst in each other but defending each other still. It was us against the bills. It was us against all the complicated, wound-tight and ready-to-explode relationships. It was us hoping we were safe at night. It was us against the questions people had about our family and why it way the way it was. I’d sometimes lie my way out of those or act like I didn’t understand the question. How can an 8-year-old tell someone your dad chose drugs over you, you don’t know him, and your last name isn’t even his, so no, he’s not one of the Neuharts from Caldwell. 

Always, there you were. Trying. Demanding. Working. Paying. Loving. Studying. Stumbling. Proving. Fighting. And fighting. And fighting.

And, in time, breaking. Breaking before God and me. Admitting you couldn’t do it anymore. Calling on Jesus to save you. All our efforts left us in a heartbroken mess. I understood and wasn’t angry. But you just kept saying you wanted me to be OK and you’d do whatever you could to make sure I would be. You have no idea how often I go back to that tenderness. To that humility. To that love. 

By God’s grace, I am OK. But the irony is, I’m not OK, too. And I’ve become fine with that. Because our God is more than OK. And he takes the brokenness that’s always with me, and the brokenness that catches me by surprise, and he says just what I need to hear through his Word. He loves me in just the way I need to be loved in Jesus. He binds up my wounds with redeeming care while whispering the promise that he will make all things right one day. I am astonished by his heart, and he knows how often I go back to that tenderness. To that humility. To that love. Leaning into his words, listening hard, thankful for faith to believe I will be OK.

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For Reflection

This post poured from my heart after family movie night on Friday watching “Queen of Katwe” and seeing Phiona’s love for her struggling single mom and her mom's sacrifice for her. 

How does your brokenness from your past catch you by surprise?

How do you see God meeting you there?

What are some precious promises from his Word you are listening hard to?

Something Better Than President (To my Mom for Father's Day)

I guess in some ways it would've made more sense to write this post on Mother's Day. I could have, but I didn't. Because although you have been a mom to me these past 39 years, you've also stood where a dad should've stood all these years, too. When you're a single parent, you don't think about taking off the "Mom" hat to put on the "Dad" hat, do you? You just see what needs done and said and paid and corrected and kissed and tackled and you do it. All. Alone. Every. Day.

Last week, I glanced at our faces in the mirrored dining room when we laughed, not sure which was yours and which was mine. Our eyes, our hair color, our size, our smile. Have two mothers and daughters ever looked more alike?

It's no wonder I have a hard time telling us apart. A baby doesn't make itself and neither does a toddler, a preschooler, a student, a teenager, or a woman. So much of who I am, you have made me, and what I have, you have given me. I can't always sort out what's mine and what's yours on the inside either.

When my newborn hand first wrapped around your barely 19-year-old finger, you wrapped your love in determination and sealed it with a kiss on my tiny black-haired head. That kiss was full of expectations for how we would get through. Starting with the first time the babysitter would pry my little arms and legs from around you so you could go to work. You'd be brave, telling me and all my tears I could too and then run to your car crying on your way because you hated leaving me scared and sad. What hat were you wearing then? "Mom" or "Dad"? Or were you just knowing you had bills to pay and our mouths to feed and if you didn't work, who would?

You had expectations for me the summer before Kindergarten when we took a walk on Daytona Beach and you told me things would be different. I was becoming a big girl and would have to go to school and pull my chin out of my chest and make friends. And you knew I could do it. I believed I could too because you said so.

You had expectations for me when Amy, who had every toy she wanted, made fun of me because I didn't even have a dad. You didn't say all I'm sure you wanted to say about her, nor did you justify our situation. You helped me take pity on her because she had toys, all right, but she didn't have a relationship like ours.

You had expectations for me in 3rd grade when Carla said I looked like a chipmunk with my buck teeth hanging over my lip. You didn't rush to the orthodontist and throw some braces on me to boost my self-esteem or tell me buck was the new beautiful. You expected me not to take myself too seriously and suggested that I go with the theme and dress up as one of the chipmunks for Halloween. So out came the over-sized sweatshirt and paint for Alvin's signature "A". Trick or treat!

You had expectations for me in 5th grade (Stella's age) when I had to start setting my own alarm clock for school and getting myself out of bed, ready, and out the door on time. I couldn't miss the bus because you were already at work and couldn't leave to come get me if I did. I think I ran to the bus stop many mornings that year, climbing those bus steps panting and wind blown. I may have even chased it down a few times, running across Forest View Drive to the last stop in our neighborhood. (Punctuality was never my strength. Wonder where I got that from?!)

You had expectations for me in 7th grade when I didn't make the cheerleading squad in spite of being favored for a spot going into tryouts. The teachers picked the girls from "good families" and who knew what mayhem I might introduce considering the kind of family I came from. You gave me strict instructions that I was to be as glad for the girls who won as I would've been for myself. That I shouldn't dare talk badly about the judging or any of the other girls who beat me, regardless of what I thought of their "barely off the ground toe touches" and "horribly uncoordinated dancing."

You had expectations for me in the summers from 5th grade on. I was to be out of bed by 9 AM, check my to do list for the day, and get busy completing it before you got home that afternoon. I was also to read Five Little Peppers and How They Grew and list every word I didn't know the meaning of. Then I was to look up those words in the dictionary and write out their definitions. (Thankfully, you let this one expectation go after awhile!)

You had expectations for me in high school when one of my teachers, who by all other accounts was a nice person, had the audacity to say a woman could never be President of the United States because she would constantly be changing her mind about what color the drapes should be in the White House. (Even typing those words now still makes my blood boil a little too much.) I don't think I'd ever heard someone criticize and demean my gender like that because you had taught me, not in a man bashing way, nor in a we-need-men-as-much-as-a-fish-needs-a-bicycle way, women were as competent as men. Didn't everyone think that? I knew you couldn't care less what color the drapes were in the White House, but you were a woman who could capably lead our house and your office, with a multi-membered staff and several departments, because you were smart and decisive and strong. And you expected the same from me.

For 26 years under your roof, you told me what I should be and you lived it for me like a mom should and like a dad should've. My old high school teacher might be surprised that you raised me to be something better than President. God used all you invested in me and expected of me to help make me a Christian woman.

Happy Father's Day, Mom. For all the days you did what needed to be done, said what I needed to hear, worked your fingers to the bone, studied into the wee hours of the morning to earn your degrees, stayed up late to wash clothes and floors and dishes, and lived the expectations you held me to. You became part of who I am. And I couldn't be prouder to be so much you that I can't tell us apart.

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*Some names have been changed in this post to protect the guilty:)

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2015: Walking Forward with a Limp

Lunches packed, backpacks zipped, and the girls buckled in. Matt pulls the van out of the garage this morning as "Speak Life" blares through the speakers. He's doing his own cheorgraphy to make Ruby laugh. We're all forced smiles and silly dancing to hide our sadness that the time has come for our family to go our separate ways once again. Nineteen and a half days of science experiements, easy baking in the new oven, ninja swords slashing, library bags stuffed full of the allotted 25 books checked out per card, more sweets and late mornings and nights than we see any other time of the year. It. was. wonderful.

Days with this girl whose precociousness was cute at age 7 but is something else at age 9. ;)

She and I are BFFs we say, and we are, but she likes her new Justice clothes too and is excited to wear them back to school. She's reading Heaven for Kids and I pulled it off her bed today and couldn't help but thank God for the way she's marking it up and I murmer a quick prayer that it will sink down deep too.

Endless hours with this one.

She's a lot of bark and some bite. But she curls up on my lap at 6 1/2 still like she did when she was 3 and watches "Night at the Museum." She has some tears last night about going back to school and I take her in my arms and we run to Jesus together. I wish it wouldn't have taken me almost 10 years into parenting to learn to talk about him, yes, but to him more. Every time she fears, we call to him. Where does your help come from, Ruby? Your help comes from the Lord. Hear it. Believe it. Live like it, precious girl.

And then the one I get to be with all the time for awhile longer.

He melts this mama to mush with that smile and tender heart. We pass a boy in the grocery store with his arm in a sling and Schaeffer wants to stop and pray for him. So we do. He hears an ambulance and says, "Mama, shouldn't we pray about them?" So we do. Son, where else would we go, but to him? Surely his ear is not too dull to hear and his arm not too short to save.

Today, I'm tempted to curse time that takes my babies from me and pushes us too quickly back into our routine. But although time takes, today it also gives. So, I gather my heavy heart and move forward to do the next thing.

I move forward though, with a limp. Some are charging into 2015 full steam ahead. I wish I could, but charging isn't for me. John Piper said, "Any progress forward we make in this life is with a limp."

And, oh, how I feel it! It's humbling, this limp is. It reminds me of the times these past months that I've wrestled with God, like Jacob. "Not your will, but mine be done," I've said. And he gently reminds me, like my wise grandpa did, that you can't whip God. So instead I whisper, "Yes, Lord," and trust and struggle up, not quite the same.

It reminds me of the same sins I'm wrestling with in this wandering heart of mine, some for weeks, months, and years past. The battle is tiring, not because I'm always fighting as hard as I should, but because the fight just never lets up.

And, it reminds me how much I need others to help me on to God.

This man.

Yes, him. He limps too, he'll tell you. Especially when he looks at his "To Do" list every day, and even more on Sunday mornings when the Word weighs so heavy on him it just might crush him and he thinks what in the world is man, entrusted to handle truths so great? Yes, this man, whose chest I can't touch because the beating there only reminds me of his mortality, and it's too much to bear. Yes, this man, that I'm called to help. Some helper I am with my debilitating limp. But he understands and gives me a knowing glance as we link our arms of flesh that certainly will fail us and lean hard on the One who never will.

And these ones.

How quickly they've won a place in our hearts! There have been some trials and tears and many laughs and new experiences already that have bonded us together. The shepherd, I know him, he's a loving pastor, a faithful doer, and an intentional and careful dreamer, and we are following and growing. They know about our limp and they love us still. They've even bravely shared that they too, walk with one. So we promise together to hold each other up and help each other home.

Walking forward into 2015, then, I ask - we ask - God to do things in our lives and our church that can only be explained by the fact that he's a great God who loves and uses weak, feeble, and even limping sinners for his glory.

"Yes, Lord, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name and renown are the desire of our hearts!" (Isaiah 26:8)

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*I wrote this yesterday, but am just getting it posted today.

**Thanks to RJ and Emily Vergara for some of the (better) photos in this entry.

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These Four Walls

It's a fitting end to our homeschool year. I just got off the phone with the mom of one of Stella's unsaved friends from soccer. She invited us over for a playdate. That phone call was fruit of our feeble attempts to reach out. Well, actually more like Stella's efforts reaching out. She would lie awake at night last fall burdened for her friend on her soccer team who didn't know Jesus. She'd pray for her. And at the end of the season she wanted to invite her to church. So I helped her write out our church information on a slip of paper so she could give it to her. Then this spring soccer season, Matt and I followed Stella's lead and tried to get to know her mom and dad better.

It's funny because this whole homeschool thing from our perspective has never been so much about being within these four walls of our home. I know I can wrongly think these four walls are a fortress of protection against the world and if I can just inculcate our kids enough and micromanage their influences they will be safe from worldliness. But with one angry word and selfish action I see their hearts and remember that the world is in there, not out there. And there's no wall big enough to save them from themselves. There's no mom wise enough and no dad strong enough to dominate their rebel hearts into submission. But "if they are among those whom God has chosen for eternal life, Jesus will have them as His subjects." (Starr Meade) So it's not about my kingdom on Keppen. It's about King Jesus' kingdom and how we fit into His reign.

And I'm preaching this to myself over and over and over. Because how can I hold these dear ones loosely when all I want to do is hold them closely? How can I convince myself they've never really been mine, but His to steward, when with each step they take away from me I have to restrain myself from chasing them down and bringing them back near? How can I give them life and then gladly lay down my life for them? This task of mothering is for women of steel and I'm just weak and vulnerable.

When I'm about to be overcome with grief and give way to the crisis of my identity, I remember a Father who saw His Son walk away from Him for the promise of something better. The covenant conversation from Isaiah 53 between God the Father and God the Son comforts me. "If you give your soul as an offering for sin, I will give you a people." So it pleased the Father to let Him go. It satisfied Him to see His Son suffer among the transgressors because of what it was accomplishing - bringing many more sons and daughters to glory.

I'm reminded God doesn't ask anything of me He hasn't already done for me. Perfect obedience positionally and grace to obey practically are mine. So I can let them grow and go because He's in control of them, working His own good purposes to expand His kingdom. And ultimately, I really do want them to follow Him, not me. I want them to hear His voice, and for it to be more familiar and precious than mine. I want them to come to know His gentle arms when they need comforted and trust His strong hand when they're used to reaching up for mine.

A wise woman builds her house. But she's wiser still if she remembers the four walls of it are but a small part of the much bigger kingdom He is building.

 

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I Thought I Was Safe

Last week I enjoyed laughing at the comical ways Stella's peers described their moms and thought since I'm the teacher I was safe from those embarrassing exposures. Then Sunday came. Stella's Sunday school teacher had her class fill out one of those handy dandy questionnaires about their moms.

Apparently my favorite thing to wear is the same clothes for two days. I guess even MORE laundry is in my future now!

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Stirring Soup in the Spotlight

It has been said that being a mom is a thankless job. Days are spent doing things no one notices. The paparazzi's not hiding in our bushes to snap pictures of us unloading our screaming kids from the van. No one is dying to interview us on our latest bedtime routine, hoping this one will keep them in bed at night. There are no Yahoo! headlines spotlighting a mom who picks up the same toys 20 times a day only to have them thrown all over the house another 20 times that same day. Nor is there a newspaper spread featuring a mother elated over the rare pleasure of finding all the matching socks as she folds her laundry.

Our hearts crave the spotlight and the feeling that we're doing something significant, something that really matters. When these desires aren't met, we are tempted to grow embittered about or weary of our tasks, doing them half-heartedly or not at all. Our focus wanders from what we should be doing to what we think is worthwhile and will satisfy our desires for joy.

Maybe you're a nurse and the weariness of ungrateful and sometimes belligerent patients wears you down to the point that you wonder if the money is even worth it. Maybe you are a teacher and are tired of disrespectful students and blame-shifting parents who take the fun out of a job you used to enjoy. The particulars might be different, but regardless of our set of duties, our struggles are the same.

One morning as we were working through a catechism focusing on Jesus' humiliation and exaltation, I asked the girls to name some ways Jesus showed humility during His time on earth. Ruby responded, "When He fed people." It took a minute for me to grasp the profundity of her response. She got it absolutely right! I never thought of His providing meals for people as an act of humble service. He had heavenly priorities and although He needed to eat too, He could have seen their request for food as an inconvenience to the more important things He was trying to accomplish. But He didn't. He used this basic necessity to serve them and teach them.

I chuckled to myself as this image popped into my head:

I have felt like this on many occasions, especially when I'm engrossed in a project or task and know the clock is marching on toward that hour when all chaos will break loose if I don't have food ready for the savages formerly known as my children. So, I begrudgingly pull myself away from what I really want to be doing to do what they need me do.

But since Ruby made that convicting comment, I have found new significance in doing the many mundane tasks required of me. Not because the tasks in and of themselves have gotten more joyful, but because I have been more aware of Jesus' service for us.

He ministered in relative obscurity for thirty years. When few were looking or aware, He was accomplishing things of eternal significance - like securing our salvation! He was busy fulfilling all righteousness for those He came to save. So much for judging the significance of my work by what is noticed or unnoticed. There is One who is always watching and His audience is the one that matters most.

And then with the inauguration of His public ministry, when more people were aware of this Jesus of Nazareth, we still find Him meeting people's most basic needs - like eating, walking, drinking, and seeing. He even took time to invite the little ones near. I have often been challenged by the King of Heaven's kindess to the children! He didn't see them as interrupting His more majestic plans. They were His plan then just like they are His plan for me now. So I have taken time to kiss that 15th skinned knee of the day and look into those tear-filled eyes to let them know I care (and to tell them to shake it off, if need be!). Because if He had time, I certainly have time.

And those patient deeds of love and service weren't merely decorative details to the story of redemption. They were a significant part of His accomplishing all He came to do. As John states, referring to the many acts of Jesus recounted in his gospel, "[T]hese are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." (John 20:31)

As we follow Jesus' footsteps, we too learn to embrace the reality that the path is before the crown. But the fact that a reward is coming helps us serve like it helped Him endure. So for the joy set before us, let's stir that soup on the stove, sweep up those multiplying crumbs, wash and fold (and even put away!) those mounds of laundry. The reward for our humble labors will not be lost! Even all those bottles and sippy cups we fill and refill for our kids as service to Him will be rewarded! (Matthew 10:42)

Our selfless obedience shines light on God's great character, in a similar way Jesus' did. So like Him, we can use our humble stage to spotlight the One who deserves all glory and honor and power and blessing for ever and ever! Meanwhile, an amazing thing is sure to happen. As He receives the glory, we will find satisfaction in performing even the most menial task. It's the way He made us. Living for His glory really does result in our greatest joy!

Jesus did not come to be served, but to serve and give His life a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:28) And who am I to think this servant is greater than her Master? (John 13:16)

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