Unraveling Kindness

June 23, 2015June 23, 2015Leave a comment

I never knew it but for a long time I never understood the real reason of why it was important to be kind to others.

I can remember being taught the saying “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” from Matthew 7:12 and I believed what this verse was communicating was that if you gave kindness to others, others will give kindness in return. We treat people as we want to be treated in hope of someone giving back kindness to us in return.

I interpreted this teaching from the Bible as a young girl, just one verse, which is a good verse in itself but without proper teaching and my own ability to turn a verse into what I want it to mean, I led a life giving kindness and expecting kindness in return.

This way of living gave me many years of giving kindness and receiving disappointment.

Living a life giving out kindness and expecting kindness in return is not a great way to live. Everyone out there is fighting battles I can’t even begin to know about. People are lost, insecure, hurting, scared and jealous. All on their own levels. But everyone is fighting a some kind of battle in the same way I am fighting mine to put off the lostness, the insecurities, the hurts, the fears and learning to love yourself enough to not compare your life to the lives of others.

I have lived enough years now to know that giving kindness does not always return kindness. You can smile at that runner on your route every week and they may never smile back.

You can like someone’s photos on Facebook, wish them a Happy Birthday, take interest in their life and family and they may never take interest in you back. They may never wish you a Happy Birthday and they may even unfollow you.

And this is life. Living life is raw with real hurts to your heart and life lessons beneath the surface. It has taken me ten years of following Jesus to unravel my thoughts about kindness. Ten years of undoing the things I thought were true and letting God weave truth within me from His Word. What is true about kindness is we do not give kindness to receive kindness.

We give kindness to others only because God is kind.

It has taken ten years of reading the Bible as an entire story and ten years to learn how to unravel what is untrue about kindness. To take that one good verse and place it in the midst of all the other verses that God speaks to us about kindness. To synthesize them all together under teachings from Sunday mornings and participation in Bible studies.

Ephesians 4:32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Psalms 36:7 How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! And the children of men take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.

Psalms 63:3 Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, My lips will praise You.

Acts 20:35b – It is more blessed to give than to receive.

Galatians 6:9a – Let us not lose heart in doing good.

I John 3:19 – We love, because He first loved us.

Hebrews 13:1-2 – Let love of the brethren continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.

James 3:17-18 – For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

It has taken me ten years to learn that giving kindness is not about receiving kindness in return. Kindness should be given to show others the love of God. I can only be responsible for my part and I cannot control how others respond to me. I do not know their battles. I can only know mine. And it is a fight for me to give kindness when kindness is not returned.

So that is my battle for now.

I will be kind because God is kind, giving kindness freely and expecting nothing in return. I believe this is where the root of true kindness begins. When we give and expect nothing in return. Just as God has given us Himself, in our messes, and He abundantly bestows his lovingkindness on us even when sometimes we are too blinded by ourselves to give him anything in return.

As Christians we have to get off the hamster wheel of giving kindness to receive kindness. We have to give kindness only because God is kind and expect nothing in return. It is there that we can find true kindness, without selfish ambition. It is there that we can have that runner not smile back every week and remember how long God has bestowed his lovingkindness on us and we have looked the other way and not smiled back in return.

We can only give kindness because God was kind to us first. Over and over again.

That is the truth and that is what I have been missing all these years.

We can only be kind because God is kind.

Stick with me and follow this blog as I continue to write stories about what it is like to unravel and learn to be Christian in the front row at church. I am forever learning, growing and trusting that God has begun a good work in me and is bringing it to completion.

The WORST Mom Ever

June 9, 2015June 10, 2015Leave a comment

I am the WORST mom ever.

Sometimes I say this phrase to my kids when they are experiencing a disappointing circumstance. Truly. I can be fun but I am also tough. This combination leads to many disappointing circumstances.

When I say that I am the WORST mom ever to my kids I am only joking to add to the drama of their disappointed hearts. (When all my children are in counseling as adults they will talk to note taking men and women about how I used this phrase against them to feel guilty.)

I know I am causing damage when I joke with them about being the worst mother ever but I do find myself saying things like:

Oh, I’m sorry you didn’t get ice cream on the way home tonight but that is because I am the WORST mom ever.

Lately my oldest son has been saying something back to me and the more he responds to me the more I am taking his words seriously.

When I call myself the WORST mom ever he always says,

“Mom, why do you say you are the WORST mom ever when you are actually the BEST?”

The first time he said this I took his response lightly because this is the reaction I wanted to get out of my children. (The children crying while leaving Kings Island because I only treated them to Chick Fil A and a day filled with amusement park fun and I did not add ice cream on top of it all.)

These words from my oldest son have continued to stick with me even though it was the response I was expecting.

Even though I was expecting my son to respond in this way, I never expected his words to affect me the way they have.

How often do we all speak these words of untruth to all of our hearts when we find ourselves not measuring up to the moms whom we encounter at church, on the playground, in our schools and on social media.

How often are we speaking to our own hearts that we aren’t doing this mom thing as well as someone else?

I do this all the time.

Every time I fail throughout the day. Whether it comes down to feeling guilty over what I put on the table, the amount of activities I did or did not plan, the hours I spent away from them on a trip or on a run, the amount of minutes I fell short on a reading log or the homework folder.

However I fail, I sometimes and in someway speak this poisonous phrase to myself.

The WORST mom ever.

I think it and I really feel this phrase I speak jokingly to my children at times.

And the words of my oldest son are such a sweet gift to me:

“Mom, why do you always say you are the worst when you really are the best.”

I may not feel like I am always measuring up. But to the four kids who I feel like I am failing, currently I am the best mom ever to them. Currently, my kids see me doing this job of mom and through their lens they see me doing my best.

Why do I always say I am the worst? I don’t know. I wish I could see myself though the lenses of my children.

Maybe I wouldn’t be so hard on myself.

Maybe I would see myself the way they see me.

To our young children, we are the best. They can’t see what everyone else on social media is doing. They just see their moms waking up each day and loving them the best they can. Our kids don’t have the ability to measure us up against everyone else. They only measure us up against the happiness they find within the walls of their happy homes.

We may feel like the WORST but to the little people who matter, we are THE BEST.

I’m actually may be doing a decent job at this mom thing.

Those are the words I need to speak more kindly to my own heart.

Marriage: Learning To Ask Questions

June 2, 2015June 2, 20151 Comment

A few nights ago I noticed that the leftover boxes from the lunch we had eaten out that afternoon were not in the refrigerator. My husband had taken our four children home from the restaurant in our minivan and I had taken his car to the grocery store after lunch. It was his role that afternoon to get the kids home safely and get the leftover boxes out of our minivan to prevent them from baking in the hot garage on a humid, eighty-five degree almost-summer day.

Here we are at our rehearsal dinner nine years ago.

My husband and I have been married for nine years. Nine years of good fights and sweet moments of repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation.

For nine years we have been fighting to learn to ask one another questions instead of making accusations when the topics around here get heated. Usually we fight about things like leftover boxes (and also) hypothetical situations.

If I had noticed the boxes missing from the fridge and right away said something like:

You left the food in the car didn’t you?

That would have been a bad question. A very bad question. There are two yous in that question. Even though it is what I wanted to say… it hints at the fact that I know the answer. This kind of question would be an accusation. Which in marriage, I am learning, is a bad way to communicate with my husband.

Two yous in a question are very bad.

This is the kind of question I asked when we were in the earlier years of our marriage as I unraveled; trying to grow and walk in the gospel of grace but there were parts of me still tangled up in the roots of my past: hot fires of accusations and fists up ready and looking for a good fight.

In the middle years of our marriage I would have asked something like:

Is the food from this afternoon still in the car?

You see as a wife here I am getting better at asking a question but there is still a subtle hint in the direction of an accusation. No yous but there is still a hint of pointing the finger, especially with that sighed still thrown in the middle of the question.

Now, get ready for me to give myself a round of applause. Truly, if you knew my struggles in the area of asking people questions without already assuming the answer you would give me a round of applause too and if you really knew me you would stand up and encourage me to stand up too.

And if you were my husband you would want me to high five, rock fist and chest bump with you in celebration.

After nine years I asked a good question and it happen the other night over leftover boxes.

First step, I waited for the right time. After noticing the missing boxes I waited until the kids were asleep, the house was quiet and my husband and I were snuggled up on the couch watching our new guilty pleasure on Netflix.

I then waited some more and then sweetly asked…

Is the food from lunch maybe still in the car? Maybe it didn’t make it inside while you were bringing the kids in this afternoon.

Truly. The word maybe made my question non-threatening. My husband automatically said, “Yes, I forgot, I am so sorry.” And it was finished.

This whole thing got me thinking about asking questions and growing over time.

I am learning to ask better questions and I know I am not finished in this whole process. God is unraveling me and I am applauding.

Just think how good my question will be when we have been married for sixty years. I will probably just skip the question and retrieve the forgotten boxes once I find that they are missing. That would be completely accusation free. That would be complete sanctification.

And… will probably take fifty-one more years of sanctification. Or maybe longer.

Learning to ask questions has been part of the journey in learning to communicate in our marriage. We are both thankful for the process and thankful to have one another to walk with in the not-so-perfect jouney of learning communication in marriage.

God is able to do more than we could ever ask or think.

The “I Can’t” Days

May 8, 20151 Comment

There were so many days when I had a baby laying on my chest waiting to be nursed and a toddler pulling on the hem of my pants. There were so many moments when I was overwhelmed with all of the directions my heart was being pulled and all of the needs I could not possibly meet.

There were so many I Can’t Days in our little one story brick home. All the needs of those tiny people in my arms and at my feet overwhelmed me. There were tears and many disappointing sighs.

There were voices. “You are a smart, educated, with-it woman, why can’t you conquer… why can’t you be one step ahead of the runny noses and the diapers and the toys that need to be mended and fixed.”

There were moments when the “I Can’ts” were loud and the “I Cans” were soft.

Being a mom with little children is the hardest thing I have ever done. The boundaries of who I thought I was and the things which I thought I could handle have been nudged, pushed and eventually those boundaries stretched out wider and grew bigger in my young days of motherhood.

The “I Can’t Days” have made me into a better woman. It is horrible at the time, when your boundaries are being nudged, you feel like you just can’t give anymore. You feel like if someone stretches you any further, part of you might just break off. But over time, with that tiny baby on your chest and that toddler pulling on the hem of your pants, you learn that little by little you actually can.

You learn that you can stretch further than you thought. It hurts to grow in the process. I have grown with many tears. But in the hurt and the stretch you get stronger and you learn to punch the “I Can’ts” right in the nose. Right where it smarts.

Little by little and day by day you learn that you are more than you thought you were when you started this whole journey called motherhood. You find yourself loving in ways you once thought you were incapable of at the beginning of the journey. As you stretch in the “I Can’ts” you learn that you can.

You can care for one child. You can care for two… and then three… and four and beyond. You can survive on 20 minute bursts of sleep between feedings and children getting sick in their beds. You can love something when it is tantruming on the floor and acting unlovable. You can survive the long days while you are counting the years as short.

Motherhood changes you. It morphs you into a better version of yourself. You learn that you are more selfless than you thought, you learn that you can love bigger and your gag reflex slowly fades away. (See: Why I Have Been Politely Declining You Dinner Invitation)

You learn you can.

You learn you were made specifically for this journey.

And over time the “I Cans” become a little louder and the “I Can’ts” seem to soften.

You become thankful for the “I Can’t Days” because you know that those were the moments when God was refining you. Gently showing you that He made you for this journey and gently showing you that you can do more than you ever thought you could.

Happy Mother’s Day to every woman out there walking with me in the “I Can’t” days and learning, little by little, that we actually can love more than we ever thought we were capable of.

You were made for the journey.

You can.

The Things I Said I’d Never Do: An Unraveled Parent

April 25, 20151 Comment

There was a moment the weekend right before Christmas where I found myself cheering in a dark deserted parking lot on a chilly December night. I was cheering because my three year old was peeing in the bushes, outside and in the cold.

Really. I was rejoicing. This is something I’d never thought I’d be doing. Six years ago in my early parenting days, when my first son was about nine months old, my husband shared a story with me about a little boy peeing in the church parking lot and I said,

“I WILL NEVER let my son pee in a parking lot.” And I really believed myself. I was even reluctant to let my first son pee in the yard while we were potty training at two.

And there in December, I found myself applauding my three year old in the dark. I was so proud of him. This was same kind of pride I feel when one of my children take their first steps. Peeing outdoors has actually become an important milestone for me and after three sons, this “will never” along with many others has given me the opportunity to see myself unravel my wound up strings, breathe and let go of all those things I thought I’d never do as a parent.

A dear friend told me once, “parenting is actually for the parents” and I could not agree more. I can see how these little humans that I’ve carried, nursed, fed and cleaned up after are actually changing me more than I ever thought they would back at the beginning of the all the “will nevers”.

Parenting is for us. The parents. It’s funny how such tiny people have helped me grow and change. How these tiny people have helped me conquer fears, push the boundaries of who I thought I was and help me learn to love in ways I never thought I could.

I also said I will never let my kids watch Spongebob but when your stuck in a hotel room at 4pm on a rainy day with no Disney Junior you learn to let go on the tiny things that you think will corrupt your children’s tiny hearts and minds and you trust that God is bigger than Spongebob.

I said I will never own a toy gun back in those early days of being a new mom. My intentions were to raise boys that were not violent miscreants shooting everything and everyone they see. But looking back now I can see those intentions were ruled by fear and not trust. We now have multiple storage containers for weapons and nerf darts lodged into every couch cushion in our home. And so far- no violent miscreants.

I believe I may have uttered the words…

I will never let my children jump on the beds or the couch. Clearly I did not understand boys or children when this sentence came out of my mouth. This was also tangled up with the fear of my children getting hurt. I now actually sometimes encourage jumping on the couch and the beds, rejoicing when I hear them jumping and laughing and playing together the same way I was rejoicing when that little three year old was brave enough to pee outside in the cold.

I will never let my kids have formula. I am pretty sure I cried like a madwoman when the pediatrician told me my first son had lost too much weight and we had to supplement formula. The doctor’s eyes even bulged out a little at my overreaction. He wasn’t suggesting poison. Just formula. For supplemental purposes. And I was hyperventilating in my hospital bed uttering words of defeat, fear and remorse. When my fourth child was born I actually asked the nurse to give her formula our last two nights in the hospital so I could rest after having my fourth c-section. For supplemental and sanity purposes. All my kids have been nursed and given formula and despite my fears none of them has grown a third eye or eleventh toe… yet.

I will never teach my children the word MINE. I found myself correcting a friend a few years back when he was playing keep away with my infant son and using the four letter word, mine. “I don’t want him to know what that word is” is what I think I said. I felt like the word mine was the root of all selfishness. The word that in four letters can turn a sweet child into a monster. My desire was to teach my son that everything was given by a Great Giver and therefore help him learn to not use words which represented a heart of selfishness. But again, my good intentions were tangled up in fear and the unknown that a word does not produce a heart of selfishness. A heart of selfishness is naturally in all of us and selfishness will work it’s way into a home with or without the word mine.

I will never be able to survive parenting four young children, who happen to be within four years of one another. Look. It is true. Having little humans is tough. Tears on the floor, will I make it to nap time tough. I do not like to live in the unexpected. But having four kids so close together has taught me to learn to swim in unexpected waters. I am slowly learning to survive in the unexpected and learning to be comfortable when I can’t control every little thing happening around me. So far I am surviving. I haven’t lost anyone yet and everyone is still all in one piece. Things almost never go the way I planned them to go but I am learning to trust that God’s plans are greater than my plans. God is growing me and changing me, unraveling threads of fear and weaving new stronger threads of trusting in Him.

I am thankful when I find myself doing things I thought I said I would never do. It is there where I see growth. It is there where I see God making me into a better version of myself.

I never thought about parenting being for the parents. But it is. It changes you.You may even find yourself cheering for your children when they are peeing outside in the dark.

Hi, I’m Rachel. I became a follower of Christ one year before I found myself married to a man pursuing a seminary degree and on the road to become a pastor. That was nine years ago. We now have four kids, he is the head pastor of a PCA church in Mason, Ohio and I am figuring out how to be a mom, how to love my husband and how to trust God in the every day, one day at a time. I write stuff here and I try to keep it honest and encouraging as I have accomplishments and set backs. Follow this page on Facebook or add your email to the follow box on the right so we can stay in touch.