A Letter To My Self-Righteous Self

November 8, 2014November 8, 2014Leave a comment

Hey You.

I know you.

I know your better than thou look, I know your better than thou pounding heart. When you become bothered by an opinion that is differing from your own.

I see you try to rise up in my heart. About parenting. About marriage. About church. About schooling. About theology.

The I’m doing this right vs. everyone else is doing this wrong.

Self-Righteous Self, you have no idea because you hear yourself louder than you hear Jesus.

I see you in the words scribbled in my Bible from years ago. You thought you knew. You thought the layers of sin had been pulled away. You thought some simple I’m sorry’s to God could erase the wounds to His heart and lead you on the path to heal others.

I see your posts on social media from years passed. You were so quick to defend and so quick to point out the mistakes of others. You were void of your own failures and your own personal mistakes.

I see you trying to come out when you try to post to defend on social media and your I’s and your We’s are bolded and your eyes of Christ are nowhere to be found.

I’m glad I’m a little beyond you now. Just a little. Not enough to overcome you but enough to recognize you on the hill standing above me, ready to overtake any will power I have left.

Self righteous self, you like to dominate me. Especially when I feel bravery behind a screen.

Especially when I hear my defensiveness and my prone to post articles in favor of my largest idols. I know you are screaming to overtake me from that high hill.

When I hear the advice I lend to others headlined with a “you are just like me” I know it is time to fight you ..with the sword of the Holy Spirit. You could never overtake me alone from where you are positioned.

I have been self-righteous in the past and I have a tendency to be self-righteous in the present. It is all too easy for you to rise up and overtake me.

Constantly I need to read what God says about you. This part of me standing atop the high hill-

What does God say about self righteousness?

(Romans 14:1) Accept those whose faith is weak. Don’t judge them where you have differences of opinion.

(1 John 4:19-21) We love because he loved us first. 20 Anyone who says he loves God but in fact hates his brother or sister is a liar. He doesn’t love his brother or sister, whom he has seen. So he can’t love God, whom he has not seen. Here is the command God has given us. Anyone who loves God must also love his brothers and sisters.

Self righteousness, who are you to think you have the God of The Universe figured out?

When your words begin with understanding, I will hear you louder.

When your heart bounds with compassion for others opposite of you I will let you speak.

Jesus did not die for us to spout off what we think is right.

Jesus died for us first.

Jesus died for us to love sinners next. Really love them were they are NOW.

When your I’s are softer and your love is louder you will be heard. That is when you will graduate from self-righteousness to Christ’s righteousness. Until then you are silenced. Even though my fingers may begin to type… the Holy Spirit is louder and will for sure delete you.

Self-righteous self, until your views be less, the power of God within me will help you be less too.

Self-righteous self, you do not know what you think you know.

May the POWER OF GOD change you. From the inside out.

From Matthew 5,

Jesus began to teach them.

He said,

3 “Blessed are those who are spiritually needy.
The kingdom of heaven belongs to them.
4 Blessed are those who are sad.
They will be comforted.
5 Blessed are those who are free of pride.
They will be given the earth.
6 Blessed are those who are hungry and thirsty for what is right.
They will be filled.
7 Blessed are those who show mercy.
They will be shown mercy.
8 Blessed are those whose hearts are pure.
They will see God.
9 Blessed are those who make peace.
They will be called sons of God.
10 Blessed are those who suffer for doing what is right.
The kingdom of heaven belongs to them.
11 “Blessed are you when people make fun of you and hurt you because of me. You are also blessed when they tell all kinds of evil lies about you because of me. 12 Be joyful and glad. Your reward in heaven is great. In the same way, people hurt the prophets who lived long ago.

Self-righteous self, may you desire to be more like Jesus and His teachings.

Unraveling Anxiety

November 5, 2014November 5, 20163 Comments

I dance with worry and anxiety too often. Sometimes I let anxiety lead the rhythm of my step. I find my feet walking to it’s beat.

Just like you when a child naps in the afternoon who usually does not I may begin to worry that he may be ill. I am walking in anxiousness waiting for that thermometer to read above 100.5.

Or other times when my husband is not home at the usual time and is also unreachable on his phone. My mind assumes that something is really wrong, most of the time assuming the worst and waiting for an officer to show up at my doorstep to tell me my husband has been in a terrible car accident. The rhythm of anxiety causes my mind to pace just to keep up with it’s steps.

Most of the time what I see in myself when I am dancing is really just the symptoms of anxiety. I see the dance of anxiety and I am beginning to recognize it’s luring rhythm. Racing mind, racing heart, outrageous thoughts, sweating plams, edgy tone, words that spew out of my mouth like an unredeemed child with an out of control God. Words like:

I fear…

I can’t…

It won’t…

I try to cover up the symptoms of anxiety with prayer and verses memorized from scripture or verses found in the Bible topic glossary under the bolded words: worry and anxiety. But the worries come back. I find myself back in the luring rhythms dancing with worry and anxiety because I am only seeing what is above the surface.

I forget to go down deep below the surface and take a good look at the giant glacier below me- where worry and anxiety are breeding a faulty foundation completely out of sight.

I am lured by worry and anxiety in my thought life because beneath the surface I have an unbelieving heart.

Beneath the surface I am drinking from the broken cistern of control. (Jeremiah 2:13 For my people have committed two sins. They have forsaken me the spring of living water and they have dug their own cisterns:broken cisterns that cannot hold water.)

Beneath the surface I am a beautiful jagged mess of pride and unbelief.

My pride desires to be in control. I want to know what is coming. I want to prepare my heart. My pride believes if I know what’s coming I can be more prepared. My pride tells me I am able to do all things. Like Eve, I want to taste the fruit so my eyes will be opened and I will then know like God knows.

My unbelief is screaming I have giant patches of cold glacier where I fail to know the character of a loving God. In my unbelieving desire to control I forget that God is in control of all things for his redeemed children. In my unbelief I choose to dance with the enemy instead of the One who truly loves me and knows the plans He has for me. (Jeremiah 29:11)

I’ve always known I am prone to worry. When I sing the words from “Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing”

Prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love- I think of my anxious adulterous dance. My constant pattern of leaving the God I love to wander over and let the rhythm of worry and anxiety control my steps.

It has just been recently that I have had the courage to look deep beneath the surface at the giant glacier of pride and unbelief breeding below me. Where the desire to control and the unbelief in my Great God are growing beneath the surface of my anxious symptoms.

Before I can examine what is tangled up beneath the surface I need to know how loved by God. I need His presence and His Spirit to be present with me.

So with courage and the armor of the Holy Spirit I have been willing to go down beneath the surface. When I see the beautiful jagged mess below. I am heartbroken. I didn’t even know about my broken cistern to be in control. But with the armor of the Holy Spirit I remember that God knew this about me anyway and He still sent Jesus to die on the cross for that icy jagged mess. I place my hand on my head to remember that no matter the mess my helmet of salvation is secure.

image via “practical pages”

With the armor of the Holy Spirit I can begin to unravel all the tangled up dances from wandering back and forth between belief and unbelief. With the armor of the Holy Spirit I know I have a Great Surgeon who helps me go to work, ever so gently to unravel the wandering mess I’ve made.

For now I am going down deep beneath the surface to fight the unbelief and pride of my heart. Not alone but with the armor of the Holy Spirit. With truth. With the gospel of peace. With the helmet of salvation secure.

I am called Sought Out. A city not forsaken. God remembers me and He cares for me SO MUCH that I am sought after. (Isaiah 62:12)

Why do I let the myths of anxiety lure me when I have a God like this?

I believe. Help my unbelief.

********

Where do you feel the lure of the dance of worry and anxiety?

Marriage?

Family?

Election?

Job Security?

Relationship Security?

Final Exams?

*********

Is God calling you to look beneath the surface at the glacier below you? Take your armor with you.

Let the Great Surgeon help you unravel.

And dance with the One who calls you Sought Out.

*********

I See You

October 28, 2014October 28, 20151 Comment

I see you there in the grocery store with your child carrying on about wanting that toy back by aisle which-ever-it-was. I see you and I give you an encouraging smile.

I see you and I hope that my smile felt encouraging and not judging. I see you because that was me not but a few weeks ago.

Children all piled into a grocery cart that needs more seats than spaces for groceries and a mother that has set a boundary. I see you. You are not being judged.

I was you. I am you.

My smile means I am with you. My smile means I know those days when the battles are hard and the tears may flow.

I smile because like you I know you are doing your best. You are doing your best just like me in this uncontrolled environment of a grocery store, just getting your milk and bread and dealing with the other disapproving looks of passing customers.I see you because I am just like you: a mom setting boundaries and doing her best.

I see you in the parking lot losing your temper over the one child that broke the long line of hand holding and wandered into harm’s way. I smile at you too. My babies have wandered away from e in the parking lot far too often and this sin that is deep inside my soul causes me to lose my temper sometimes too.

I see you because if I am not you today, I was yesterday, or maybe I will be tomorrow and I will need someone to see me too. I will need someone to see me when I am the one standing there, temper flaring, only because I love my child and I am concerned for their safety.

In the parking lot. I see you.

I see you at church smiling pretending like the lost hours of sleep are not wearing on your soul. I see you. I know that face. You are smiling but you are one mention of sleep or feeding away from tears. Those first months are taxing and are parenting’s cruel, cruel initiation and I promise not to ask you if your baby is sleeping though the night or if you feel rested.

I see you because I have never had a baby sleep through the night sooner than six months.

I see you overwhelmed with love an under-slept all at the same time. I see you and my smile is simply an affirmation and an “I’ve been there too.” I know you are tired. We are in this together.

I see you where you are.

I smile because I want you to know our mom shirts put us on the same team.

I see you because I am you. I am with you.

Will you see me too?

What I Remember

October 5, 2014September 19, 20166 Comments

I remember coming home from school right before Easter and my mother sitting me down along with my two younger siblings in our formal living room.

“Mommy is sick.” Were the words I remember being said.

That was about all I can remember of that moment. Those words, that room and the blurry shape of my mother. I was seven when she told me she was sick for the first time.

I began to notice some small changes. My grandma would come to stay with us often and my mother would go for treatment about every three weeks to University of Cincinnati hospital.

I remember the meals.

I remember the hospital room.

I remember being allowed to spend the night with my mom at the hospital and we would play rummy until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.

I can remember when she lost her hair. I was eight then and she had a pixie cut right before she lost it all. My mom was a frequent volunteer in all my elementary classes and one week she came with her pixie cut and the next she came with her shoulder length wig. I remember not thinking anything of it until someone asked me how her hair grew so fast. I remember getting upset with her because at eight I didn’t really understand what “mommy is sick” really meant.

At eight you think mommy is sick will end with “mommy will get better.” When I was sick as a child there seemed to always be a way to heal me. At eight I thought mommy would heal.

I remember the sick going away and coming back again.

I remember never feeling like she was sick. Visibly she was sick. Her hair was gone, one of her breasts had been removed and I remember her wincing at the visible and painful canker sores in her mouth from chemo.

But I remember she never missed a beat for us. She was not lying around when I got home from school even if she could barely peel herself off the couch as the bus came up Thistledown Road. She never bought a halloween costume from the store, she was present in our schools, in our scout troops and I’m pretty sure she took on being the cheerleading coach one year.

image via indulgy.com

I remember feeling angry when I wasn’t eight anymore and the reality of “mommy is sick” was able to sink in deep into the corners of my heart.

I remember coming home from a sleepover one weekend to find her upstairs in her bed after the sick had spread to her brain. There were scrambled eggs all over her from where she had tried to feed herself but her brain could not help her move the fork from her hand to her mouth.

I remember sitting there with her in the four-poster king-sized bed after the eggs were cleaned up and I tried to help her clip coupons. I remember crying when she couldn’t tell me which one to clip so then she tried to point but because her hand eye coordination was so impaired it made it difficult for her to communicate and she wasn’t being understood.

I remember her being frustrated and I remember trying to be patient. I remember I felt so guilty for going to that sleepover. I should have stayed home and soaked up every last minute I had sitting with her in that four-poster bed.

I remember the day my sister and I got off that bus that came up Thistledown Road and my mother wasn’t there waiting for us. I remember running frantically from door to door and window to window with my sister. We both knew.

I remember my dad telling me she wasn’t going to make it. I was fourteen and I looked out the passenger window of our Chrysler minivan and said, “I know.” I remember trying to hold myself together because I felt the need to be strong for everybody else.

I remember sitting by her bedside in ICU and talking to her while she was in a coma. I remember trying to tell her about my dance competition without crying. I remember telling her I loved her and that was the last time I saw her.

I was at home when my dad told me my mom had exhaled her last breath. It was a school night, right before Easter, seven years after I sat on that couch and heard, “mommy was sick.” I remember leaving my house that night to spend the night with friends and I remember going to school the next day like nothing had happened at all.

These are pieces of what I can remember from my childhood with a mother battling breast cancer. These are just pieces of a story that I hope my children cannot grow up to tell of their own childhood thirty years from now. We have come a long way in breast cancer research since 1991 but there isn’t a cure for breast cancer yet. So for now I can only hope, pray for a cure, and share the pieces of my story to raise awareness.

Breast cancer not only takes our mothers, our sisters, our wives and our daughters but it leaves us here with broken stories. As I sit here typing my memories I hear those deep down corners of my heart screaming, “this is not the way it’s supposed to be!”

It’s not supposed to be this way – and hopefully it’s not for someone else in their story.

Lord, bring a cure quickly. For our mothers, our sisters, our wives and our daughters.

Raise Awareness. #october

The Journey Of Letting Go

September 21, 2014September 22, 2014Leave a comment

I took a moment today to put down the broom and sit with you on the floor to read a book. Normally, while your brothers are quiet after lunch I take a moment to sweep and put dishes away; today I took a moment and I sat with you right there on the crumb filled floor.

In between the turns of the chunky pages I touched my nose to your bald head and breathed in what is still lingering of your baby smell.

The plates and crumbs waited as your brothers played quietly and I chose to sit with you another moment, for another breath and another book.

After you went down for your nap I took a moment to observe your biggest brother’s praying mantis and listened to him rattle off everything he knows about bugs. He looks taller standing there now but when he crouches over the patio table to view his favorite bug I get caught up in how quickly his legs have become as long as the table is tall.

I took a moment to leave the wrinkle free shirts in the dryer and line up cars with your middle brother. When you really listen to him talk about his cars you can hear the depth of his imagination and the song of his heart.

I made sure I had a moment today to push your youngest brother on the swing but then I decided to sit on the swing and fold him up in my lap. It was just a moment because it wasn’t long before you were trying to taste fall foliage by shoving baby handfuls into your mouth.

But a moment was all it took to experience this blink of an eye called motherhood in technicolor. To feel it, hear it, smell it.

I’ve been thinking about the moments I had with my mom, your grandma. I remember her reading to me, joking with me and folding me up in her lap.

Our house was always clean and things were put away but my mother remembered to stop and take in the moments. She knew it was important to stop and experience motherhood in technicolor.

I remember the technicolor moments with her. Not the half listening, half sweeping, half uploading moments.

I remember in technicolor the moments she took to breath every moment of me in… like it might be her last.

There is never a guarantee we will get all the moments we wish we could have had. Suddenly those moments can vanish and in the blink of an eye in this phase of motherhood…with you tucked in my lap…the moments will be over.

This is a journey of letting go. Little by little and moment by moment one of us will have to let go sooner than we had hoped. We belong not to one another but to One calling us to something greater.

So while we have one another here in this kitchen I promise to try to remember to live these moments of motherhood in technicolor. To stop sweeping through my task to read you a book and breathe you in on this journey of letting go.

Psalms 39:4
“LORD, make me to know my end And what is the extent of my days; Let me know how transient I am.”