And They Lived Happily Ever After (A Sequel)

February 4, 2015February 4, 2015Leave a comment

(an old post made new)

Oh Cinderella, how I love to watch you and you Prince Charming drive off in that royal carriage. And then ah! to see the words on the last page of your storybook, “and they lived happily ever after.” As a young child and even as a young woman the last pages of your story helped me write the beginning pages of my future love story.

I know there are sequels to Cinderella but I always stopped at the ending of Cinderella’s first story, which left this girl wondering, What is happily ever after?

For as long as I can remember I built the beginning of my real life love story on those happy ending words. Where Me, Mrs., and Him, Mr., mostly made googley eyes, packed our bags for romantic getaways and the two of us together had mind reading powers and effortless communication.

In my happily ever after, I built up the image of the smiling and the kissing and the frolicking off into the sunset.

Now I’ve been married for almost nine years, which is not that long, but it is long enough to know my perceived happily ever after was as real as the story where I initially found the phrase.

My assumptions about what marriage could be like came from the pages of storybooks and off of the silver screens where the authors and screen writers seem to leave out the mundane everydayness of what happens in real marriage.

In When Sinners Say I Do, my favorite book on marriage, Dave Harvey writes about how every Jane Austen movie is the same.

The stories all end at the altar, just when reality is about to come knocking. Romance movies are about the dizzying tornado of romantic love picking you up in its whirling funnel and setting you down at the chapel doors all giddy and beautifully dressed.

(page 136)

Almost nine years of marriage and FOUR children later I have come to realize that my expectations for happily ever after were crazy and unreachable. Happily ever after was just a phrase, and I am no Cinderella and as much as I love my sweet husband, he is not a cliche character in a fairy tale.

My husband is a man, and I am a woman. We are both made in the image of God but at the same time our hearts are fallen, our desires are naturally bent to serve ourselves before we serve one another.

The true story about love that I should have been looking to all along was the story of Jesus and the rescued people who trust in Him for redemption.

Yes, fairytales and other media leave out the everydayness of marriage. But real marriage, two people choosing to come together in the not-so-theatrical moments is more romantic than those first giddy butterfly feelings. To choose love when you are a sleep deprived testy new parent is an everyday heroic gift you can give to your spouse. To choose dating which sometimes means dragging yourself away from crying toddlers is the mundane everydayness where you can find happily ever after.

It just doesn’t look as polished as I though it would. Marriage can have rough patches. And marriage just won’t work without looking to Jesus.

The Bible is a love story of God continually rescuing people and wooing them to Himself. In the Bible you find people who do not deserve love being loved and people being rescued even when they didn’t deserve the rescuing.

For a long time I let the world shape what I though marriage should be and I tried to cram myself and Michael into that hole. In the past and still sometimes today I drink from the “happily married” cistern.

I’ve written about cisterns before, they are a huge part of the story of how God is redeeming me personally. A cistern in the time of the Bible is a large jug that people used to hold water and give life and an end to thirst. Today some people call cisterns, idols. Normally cisterns or idols are good things. But they become all consuming when we worship the good gift more than the Giver of the gift.

“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

(Jeremiah 2:13)

I drank from the “happily ever after marriage” cistern. Sometimes I still find myself doing it and then I am still left feeling empty and unsatisfied.

Marriage can be a good thing. Marriage is a gift. But no one should ever find themselves worshipping the gift more than the Giver. That is when the thirst comes.

There are times when I value the gift of marriage more than the Giver of marriage. In The Meaning of Marriage, Tim Keller writes,

If we look to our spouses to fill up our tanks in a way that only God can do, we are demanding an impossibility. (page 52)

At times, I have depended on my marriage to fill up my tank. I believed that if Michael and I could just be more happily ever after, if we could just try harder, we would be better.

All that working and spinning of the try harder wheels left me exhausted.

When we were first married and even still now, I lacked the eyes of the gospel. The eyes that see the Giver and the gift in the proper order. And the eyes of the gospel that see me, a woman and my husband, a man, two normal people needing, craving, seeking the grace of Jesus. Every moment of every day.

I see now that I was depending on a “happily ever after” marriage to fill up my tank and make me happy. And I know now that in my fallen sinful heart I still have the tendency to do this. With the eyes of the gospel I have found that happily ever after marriage is not meant to be perfect. Nothing on this side of heaven will ever be perfect except Jesus and how he is weaving our marriage story, unraveling the bad expectations and threading the new. In this life of a normal woman and a normal man living life together I have found that “happily ever after” marriage is perfecting when I stop looking to the gift alone to fill me up and see the Giver and his grace He has given to me in Jesus.

Only God is perfect, and as we pursue Him together He is perfecting us, even when neither of us deserved His love in the first place.

As Mr. and Mrs., Michael and I are both on a journey together of simply learning how to love one another better and most importantly reflect glory and dependance upon God to our watching children and the world.

We mess this up a lot. But we are thankful for the forgiveness and grace that is found in a marriage where two people depend on Jesus. Extending and receiving grace.

So I can now breathe. I can stop trying to cram myself and my husband into this thought up expectation of “happily ever after”.

I can stop trying and start depending.

I am thankful that I am married to a man that believes in extending grace. Oh Lord, the grace my husband extends me is like that extra long swifter duster extender that finds all the tough to reach places. I have so many tough to reach places.

Happily ever after is not frolicking in meadows, it is frolicking in grace.

As you think about love this month, think about how things from stories and movies may bring unrealistic expectations into marriage and consider getting rid of the unachievable expectations and finding deep breaths in Jesus.

Please pass this on too.

Always dancing in this gospel dance with you.

boyhood: living in a hood of boys

January 27, 2015January 30, 20151 Comment

I live with lots of boys. One husband and then four little precious creations the Lord has given to us. Three of them are boys. The ladies in this house are outnumbered 4:2 and it’s a tough time for ladies in this house most days.

This is a boyhood. A house of boys.

Just yesterday I gently repremainded, “why can’t you just play school or house?” The boys in this hood then began to play school, I even showed them how to line up their stuffed animals as students, but then their students got in a fight and everyone began to wrestle… again.

Oh the wrestling. My three year old pins me and I seriously cannot get up.

If you are pinned to the ground, outnumbered in your boyhood, know I am on the ground with you. Here are some things working for me with my boys surviving boyhood and maybe they will help you too.

It’s real hard living in the hood. We need to help each other out.

1. The White Line

For a long time getting out of the car and running into moving traffic was fun for my boys. I had chest pain and my boys had fun. My heartbreaking moment was the time when I only had a twenty-month-old and a newborn and I found myself in a parking lot at the grocery store. As I turned to take my baby out of the car my little toddler dashed out into traffic and directly into the grocery store. Thankfully he was not put in harms way.

So after all these years of seeing excited boys exit a car and wait in the parking lot I have taught them how to line up like soldiers on the white line that separates the parked spaces in a parking lot. This has saved me in the land of boyhood. All three boys know their feet better stick like glue to that white line while they are waiting for momma.

2. A Simple Touch.

If you live in the same hood as I do you know listening can be a challenge. like your saying, put your shoes on just so the crows feet will begin to disappear from your eyes (that would be so awesome, right?) But boys (and men) need something more physical to really hear you. I simply and gently touch their arm and look into their eyes. “Put your shoes on” gets done and done when a simple touch of the arm is in play. A simple touch will save a girl from hearing herself talk in the hood. For real.

3. The Game.

Living in boyhood means everything is a race. For years we have been racing a bath time, bed time, seatbelt time. I never give prizes for the winner. Never. I always praise everyone efforts. But in this hood everything has to be a competition. Boys just live for competition in and of itself. If you want your boys to do something quickly make it a race. This is what works in our hood.

4. The Hero.

The Lord gave me great understanding of little boys once I learned the power of the word hero. All day I watch them, playing and fighting and rescuing. They are always rescuing someone from something. So recently in this hood I have begun to use the word, hero, more often.

I need a hero, seems to make all three come running. Paper towels are fetched more often and toys seem to get swooped up faster. Find your heroes and see the hero in your boys.

5.Their Daddy.

If you live in the hood of boyhood like I do you know how important the daddy is. Truly. He is the bread and butter to this whole thing. If daddy comes when dinner is called and tells mommy that this taco dinner is the best taco dinner he has ever had, you better believe three other boys will be saying that same thing around the dinner table for days.. for months…for their future wives…and to model for their future sons. In the hood, daddies are the key. They matter most. All the work I do all day, all the loving, snuggling, kissing boo boos and calling for heroes will never have as much impact as a few minutes with their daddy.

6. Jesus.

Jesus matters a whole lot in boyhood too. A praying boy and a boy who respects his momma because he loves Jesus is the only way this hood is going to work. Truly. Truly. Truly. Pray with those boys. Pray with them about their hearts. Pray with them about their sins. Pray with them when they get too physical with one another.

Pray for them. Pray that they would be men who love God and serve people. Pray that God would give the boys in your hood hearts to know God truly and make Him known.

As moms in the hood we are raising up the next generation of men. It is exhausting and I don’t understand the amounts of pee around the seat or the need to turn every single game into a fight or wrestling match. But I do understand that what I am doing is important for our world.

Embrace your hood.

Overcome the challenges.

Make a better world.

“Every time you raise a loving, kind and responsible man, you have created a better world.”

-Michael Gurian

Are You Ready?

January 24, 2015January 24, 20151 Comment

But are YOU ready?

This very question has plagued me for the last four weeks as my husband has accepted the call to lead our church as the senior pastor. I’ve heard the question come in the form of love, several times, over and over.

I’ve also heard it maybe once or twice seasoned, only lightly seasoned, with doubt and skepticism. For the few doubters, know…I am with you. I am my biggest critic, my own worst enemy.

This question has maybe been lurking in the shadows for me for a long time.

For weeks I have panicked and prayed, prayed and panicked. Feeling consumed by the fear and doubt that I may not be ready enough.

In my prayers, I have panicked: God, am I ready? And I have pleaded: God, please make me ready.

In my unbelief it is so easy to panic and let the questions and the doubt lurking in the shadows consume me. I am humanly wired to let the voice of my sinful heart overshadow what God says is really true about me from his Word. But oh, The Lord is at work in this girl from total darkness and I’ve been battling my unbelief long enough to know that nothing quiets the doubt better than the Word of the Lord.

When I find myself turning to the Word and letting truth cover the questions lurking in the shadows I find rest. I have found that there is nothing more powerful than God’s Word to cover the worries, the fear and the doubt.

In the promises from scripture, I find silence from the voices and the Light makes those lurking shadows seem to disappear.

After a long time of laboring over my insecurities with prayer… It hit me like a ton of bricks one day while I was sweeping up the many crumbs from under our kitchen table.

I am not ready at all.

not ready.

I don’t have to be ready. God has called my husband and I to live this part of our story in this place and in this time and His calling is enough.

Isaiah 43:13

For I am the LORD your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.

In the spaces where I am lacking readiness, God is giving me faith. Faith that God has called me to be worthy enough to be next to my husband in this next chapter. God is not calling me to perfection, He is calling me to depend on Him. Even in my unreadiness God is taking my hand, commanding me not to fear because He will help me. All that is required of me is simply dependence.

God does not require me to be ready. Ah, it sounds so nice to write that down. God only requires me to faithfully depend on him.

As a woman of faith, I can come before God bringing him nothing. God accepts me in my unreadiness. He clothes me, He loves me, He sets my feet on dry and stable ground.

I think of when Moses did not feel ready to go to Pharaoh and ask him to let the Israelites go back to the promised land. He even expressed his unreadiness to God.

But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” But God said, “But I will be with you.” (Exodus 3:11)

When I look back at my life I’ve never been completely ready for the things God has prepared for me: I’ve never been ready for anything else before.

I wasn’t ready to go to college. But God was with me and I grew. I cried hard tears. I learned. I fell. I made mistakes. But the whole time, God was with me, drawing me to Himself.

I wasn’t ready to be a teacher for the first time. I thought I was, I was credentialed enough but, looking back now, those at risk students in that city school taught me more than I ever could have taught them.

Even with all of the marriage counseling we had I was not fully ready for marriage. But God has covered our unreadiness with love and grace.

And Lord knows, I was never ready to be a parent four different times in five years. Most days I feel like I’m sinking, barely clinging on to the new mercies that come every morning.

God has been holding my hand, helping me, loving me and giving me what I needed all along the way.

I am not ready.

I am thankful that the church is one of the only places, that I can confidently yell from the rooftops, I am not ready for everything that may cross my path this week, this month or this year.

I am thankful for a God who calls the unready and the unable. I am glad he holds the hand and helps those who say like Moses, but who am I?

God has answered me in my pleading and my panicking. He has answered me by showing me I am not ready to do this by myself but I have the hand of a Great God helping me.

In my unbelief I have found truth, comfort and depending peace to cover the voices and the questions lurking in the dark shadows.

God is the One who does the calling, I will try to walk in belief that I know what He is up to.

“I believe. Help my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24)

The Thing About A Three Year Old

December 20, 2014December 20, 2014Leave a comment

Sometimes it is easier to see what is bad about the phase of a child. It is easier to scream and complain about the awful and the challenging. Some people write it down and when it is attached with cynicism others seem to applaud. Others gravitate toward the negative that is masked with cynicism. The challenging things go viral while the redeeming qualities of a phase stay in the background.

No one applauds the praiseworthy traits because everyone huddles around the ugly ones.

I know children go through challenging phases. I have four young children and I have experienced most of the awful and all of the challenging. I could tell you all the stories. The poop stories, the tantrum stories, the flat out ridiculous embarrassing moments at Target and the times my children ran into a parking lot without the helping hand of a responsible adult.

I think the praiseworthy moments deserve an applause. There is a world out there reminding us of the awful and through the noise, sometimes it is hard to stay joyful in the dog-days of parenting young children.

The thing about a three year old is there is a loyal, independent, teachable child behind those stubborn eyes.

I do not think there is a day that goes by that my three year old does not stomp his foot down and tell me, “I want to do it by myself!” BUT there also is not a day when he does not take me by my hand and say, “Mommy, you are my best friend.”

There is not a day when he does not begin to cry if his blanket is just right, BUT there also is not a day when he doesn’t want to smooth my hair out of my face and tell me I am beautiful.

The thing about a three year old is they are your best friend beneath all the challenging yuck.

They are loyal to you, you are still their best friend because peers are still of little importance.

Three year olds can dress themselves.

Three year olds can use the toilet.

Three year olds can put on there own shoes.

Three year olds can play in the snow for longer than it took you to dress them in their snow gear.

Three year olds get birthdays. They get Christmas.

Three year olds truly love their siblings: they look up to the big ones and care for the little ones.

Three year olds can set the table and match socks.

There are so many praiseworthy things about a three year old. Don’t hear the bad and embrace cynicism. Embrace the praiseworthy. I promise when you search for the praiseworthy you will find the joy in the dog days.

There are so many lovely things about a three year old. Find them. Write them down. Hang them on the fridge.

The world wants you to see a three year old through the eyes of cynicism but God wants you to see them differently. As His children, the thing about a three year old is they significant and important to Him, no matter the challenging and the yuck.

Strive to see the praiseworthy. “Whatever is praiseworthy about a three year old, think on these things.” Philippians 4:8

If you like this you will also like:

Why The Twos Aren’t Terrible

They Can Hear You

Finding Shelley At Christmastime

December 17, 2014September 21, 20162 Comments

For years I have struggled to find her. For seventeen Christmases I have looked for her but I have been so overcome with grief that my eyes couldn’t see what was right in front of me.

Christmas is a hard time of year for anyone who has lost a family member.

As a fourteen year old girl I lost my mother and it has taken me almost two decades to recover.

For as long as I could remember I was waiting for others to bring her back. I put the expectations on others to do Christmas like she did and each year Christmas passed and my expectations were not met. I felt disappointment and loss in the belly of my soul and this made the cycle of grief start all over again.

Finally, this Christmas I have found hope. I have found the hope in honoring her, after sixteen other Christmases have passed. Sheesh, it feels like it took a lifetime. But today it was worth the wait.

Today, I found my mom in the simple words of a recipe for Christmas cookies. Just one taste of the uncooked batter brought me back to childhood in her kitchen years ago. I baked Christmas cookies with my kids today and I told stories about my mom at Christmas.

I found her in the handwriting of her recipe book. The large loops in her cursive and the perfection and consistency of each stroke.

While I iced the Christmas Tree shapes and added the red hots I told my sons this was something I looked forward to every Christmas as a child. I told them I would even sneak bites of the refrigerated batter and how my mom would catch me anyway.

There have been plenty of opportunities for me to choose bitterness and loss and grief at Christmastime. There are plenty of opportunities for me to stick in the cycle of grief and let the bitterness take root and grow.

If she was here it would be different. It would be better. I do miss her. My kids and my husband have never experienced her laughter. My kids have not been able to experience the blessing of involved maternal grandparents.

I could choose to celebrate Christmastime with emptiness each year.

But instead, I choose HOPE in the midst of loss and unmet expectations.

Hope falters the growth of bitterness. Choosing hope at Christmas is a choice.

I choose to find my mom in the traditions and the stories. This has not happened overnight. It has taken sixteen years of sadness and choosing grief and the plauging seed of bitterness over the fruitful seed of hope.

Hope is what would be honoring to my mom at Christmas anyway. She wouldn’t want it any other way. If she was here she would tell me to dry my tears and teach my children to find her at Christmas. Grandma Shelley is not here physically but she lives her in our traditions.

Finding Shelley in the traditions is a choice.

Finding hope in loss is a choice.

Finding Shelley at Christmas has taken me almost two decades but I am thankful I found her today. In the cookies. The simple cookies with the red hots.

And I hope to pass her on to my children. I hope to give them hope. And stories. I hope to teach them that God’s story is full of people who lost but these same people had their eyes fixed on something Greater.