Pain. Healing. Reality

I sliced the palm of my hand.

On Tuesday.

That was two days ago.

It hurt a bit when it happened.  But pain was really the afterthought.  I felt something sharp and glanced at it a couple minutes later when I brushed it against the fabric of my shorts and jumped a little when something stung.
It was bleeding.
But just a little.

The wound was small.
It was no big deal.

I'd live.
For real.

I didn't think about it again.  I mean, not until I managed to get a little bleach water in it and I thought my whole hand was going to fall off. *

But then I was really done thinking about it.  I am the captain of arbitrary injuries.  It would grow back.  I would be fine.  Not going to lose sleep or waste tears over something so dumb.

But then I DID think about it.  And, actually, did lose sleep.  Last night, 36 hours after receiving the injury, I lay awake, nursing my pathetic hand.  My palm HURT.  As it had most of the day.  The pain wasn't unbearable, but it was noticeable.  And obnoxious. The cut burned red and hot and the severed nerve endings burned.

The injury?  It hurt.  There was a little pain involved.  But the real pain?  The real anguish of the mark?  The reality lies in the healing.

Why do I now experience pain?  Because it's trying to heal.

It seems odd that this should be the hard part.  Shouldn't the infliction of the wound cause the most damage and be the most challenging part of the whole experience?

But that's not the case?  Is it?

By now you've probably gathered I'm not talking about the one inch slice to add to my injury collection.  I'm talking about life.  Because sometimes life hurts.  And certainly life is full of opportunities to inflict pain.

Why is it that the pain doesn't end at the infliction?  Why is it that there is so much more pain in the process of healing?

My mind fills with examples and illustrations.  From my life and the lives of those whom I've had the honor of intersecting with my own.  Pictures of pain.  Moments of injury... Betrayals by friends.  Divorce and break ups and split ups.  Death and loss and abandonment.  Abuse and misuse and corruption.  Transition and change and opportunity.  Bitterness and biting words and destroyed character and disheveled lives... And the list goes on...

As if the occurrence weren't painful enough...

Every memory, every scar, every attempt towards wellness and wholeness.  Every day with the storm clouds covering the sun and drowning the ability to breath deep.  Every time we clench our eyes closed and a vice is placed around our heart so that we feel a physical pain in our chest and we try not to cry as we try one more time to let go... To forgive.  To abandon.  To surrender.  To heal.

We don't always see it as healing.  It's sometimes hard to see healing in the midst of something that still hurts.

We don't like pain.  We don't like anguish or discomfort or anything that puts us ill at ease.  We would rather be numb until everything was magically all better.

And yet in some ways the act of healing pain is only proof that one is truly and very much alive...

Some pain must be endured in order for restoration to happen.

And isn't restoration what healing is all about?

Sometimes we want to be well.
But we also need to be whole.
Oh but to be both whole AND well!

There is pain in becoming whole.  Just as there is pain in being made unwell.  But where one pain destroys, the other slowly but surely restores.

I pray that as I allow the places in life that still hurt (far outside of my sliced hand) to move towards both a wholeness and wellness, rooted in restoration, that God too will continue to restore me to Himself...



"Heal me oh LORD and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise." [Jeremiah 17:14]

"And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast..." [1 Peter 5:10]



*minor exaggeration but really not too far from the truth.

What Do They See?

(This was written to be posted almost three weeks ago.  But Socrates and I have been fighting.  Oops! Better late than never?)

Changes are coming in the life of Anika J. Kasper.  It’s a season of transition to be sure and to say the least.  And while I don’t know yet the full extent or length or potential of transition, the very nature has made me quite reflective. 

For one, it has made reflective on my last two and a half years.  And it’s made me realize how many little things for which I’ve taken advantage.  As I approach a new stage – even if it’s just a different summer job – I realized I was already facing the anxiety of people and relationships and encountering people I don’t know and furthermore, don’t know me.

It’s made me realize that, after two and a half years, this introvert had to do little hiding.  I mean, I still do/did…but not to the extent I once did.  After two and a half years of living and working with the same basic team… I’m known.  Not deeply by everyone.  But I dare say that few on my team would have trouble telling you (at least at the basic level…and for good or bad) who I am and what I triumph and for what I stand.  They could give you the basics of my character; they could highlight my soapboxes and most common rants; they could probably tell you what they thought I represented and made evident. 

There was some comfort in being known.  It meant that whether people loved me or hated me, their opinion wasn’t going to change much.  I was who I was and I could be who I am.  As a person who cares, lets be honest, far too much what other people think, it was nice to have a set “image”.  It was nice not to be in constant fear about what people saw when they saw me and whether or not they liked it.  I relaxed…

Which was good but also came at a loss.  At my job, I saw HUNDREDS of new faces every week, but I’d become to get lazy.  I stopped wondering and caring what people saw.  But the question remained…what did they see?

It’s been a question on my mind for over a week.  A new, young friend was running errands with me towards the end of the season.  She had been staying at my apartment and helping us fill the need for instructors at the end of our crazy, busy season.  Some comical accidental injury took place and I turned to remind her swiftly that “safety first was my number two rule!”  “You’ve been living me with two weeks,” I followed emphatically, “you should know this by now!” 

I comically proclaimed that after two weeks, my rhetorical rule and catch phrase ought to be glaringly obvious.  But this proclamation left me with a cringe.  A visible one on my face.  After two weeks…after any amount of time, really…what become my unspoken realities?  What things were true and emphasized in my life before I could put words to them?  If my life were to look seriously into the eyes of another and proclaim “you should know this by now!” What would it say?

What do people know after me after spending not so much time with me at all?  If you lived with me for two weeks…would you know true things?  True things about me?  True things about the world?  What does my life triumph when my lips are triumphing nothing at all?

Convicted.

I was afraid then…as I fear now…that in my “relaxed” stage, I had become not only lazy but neglectful.  I was allowing “true” things and pieces about me to show…and sometimes they were covering, shading, and what I wanted to be the truest things.

If people were to be asked to describe me, in a sentence, what would they say?  Would I be embarrassed by the answer?  Embarrassed, admittedly, because I have a pride issue…  But also embarrassed because of a humility in the answers and their representation of my life. 

When people see me…what do they see?

Do any of them see Jesus?

I cringe because I think the answer could be “no”. 

There is a Sidewalk Prophets song entitled “Live Like That”.  It’s a couple years old now but I just obtained the album it’s on and caught a line I hadn’t remembered hearing before.  The artist proclaims “people pass…and even if they don’t know my name…is there evidence that I’ve been changed? When they see me, do they see You?” 

And there was the question.  The conundrum in a nutshell.  It’s left me cringing, questioning, and wanting.

Wanting to be a life both passionate and alive.  Wanting to disappear into the shadows That the world would look and miss Anika – the good, the bad, and the ugly – and mostly, mostly just see Jesus. 

I wanna live like that…

“Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the gospel.”

Philippians 1:27 (NIV)

Dear Mom...

For the last few years – ever since I’ve been in college really – I’ve had the inkling to write a Mother’s Day post.  A letter full of ways in which, as an adult, there are things I see and appreciate now that I never could as a child.  Ways in which, looking back, I realize I was by far one of the “lucky ones”.  Growing up we never had a lot of “stuff” but our house was always full of the things which mattered.  I wanted to acknowledge that, and, let’s face it, the following was NEVER going to fit in a card and Hallmark still hasn’t found quite the words to say it the way I want.  I know Mother’s Day was a few weeks ago…I’ll admit I had written the note and waited to post it and very much and quite possibly forgot it was there to post.  But I also don’t believe moms should get relegated to a single Sunday of the year.  As if the other 51 Sundays and 364 days make a mom less important or of less worth to celebrate.  My mom still matters to me post the calendar square and so I thought I’d post it anyway.  So Mom, this one is for you…

Dear Mom,

Happy Mother’s Day!  I’m glad there is a day set aside in the calendar year to recognize you.  To celebrate the women who do so much with very little thanks or appreciation or acknowledgment.  Oh, granted, in this day and age, most women could “choose” not to be moms if they so desired.  And, let’s face it, we’ve discussed the fact that there are moms that don’t deserve to be moms and really shouldn’t be…  But you’re not one of those.  Mother’s Day is for moms like you, moms that need to be celebrated.  You need to be celebrated and thanked.  I hope as the years have progressed, I’ve done a better job of thanking you. Of remembering the sacrifice you’ve made and continue to make for my siblings and me.  But you’ll remember (because you’re my mom and that’s what you do) that I turned 25 this year.  You’ve been my mom for a quarter of a century…and it is time I did something to acknowledge that…  So Mom, thank you. 

Thank you for raising me to love Jesus.  I recently articulated my faith journey stating I was raised in a home with parents who loved Jesus and it showed.  You taught me to have the love of God on my lips and in my heart. You reinforced it with every van ride with Adventures in Odyssey playing, every Psalty song tape, every children’s praise tune.  Thank you for making Sunday School an expectation and helping me memorize my memory verse every week. Thank you for every dinner devotional you made us sit through.  Thank you for praying with us before we went to bed at night.  For praying in front of us. Thank you for establishing that matters of faith were a “life thing” and not a “church thing”.  For demonstrating for us a faith both real and true.  For giving us an example of what loving Jesus was supposed to look like.

Thanks for being married…and staying married…to my dad.  (Whom I also think is notably fantastic and gets many of the kudos in this as well because you two were always a partnership when it came to raising us).  Thank you for demonstrating for the five of us what commitment and sacrifice and family are supposed to look like.  Thank you for telling us about and then demonstrating for us a marriage which wasn’t two people going half way and meeting in the middle…but about two people who went 100% and made Christ the center because a healthy marriage takes three.  Thank you for kissing in front of us and allowing us to see that love and affection.  Thank you for fighting in front of us.  Because eventually we knew the fight would resolve and we were taught that marriages could have disagreements without it becoming a reason to separate.  Thank you sticking with it through thick and thin.  For respecting Dad and making sure we respected him as well.  For showing us what it meant to be a family…and that being a family meant something.

Thank you for being a “domesticated” mom.  Perhaps that sounds silly coming from your fiercely independent and prone-to-advocate-for-women’s-rights-in-most-settings daughter.  It probably even sounds quite taboo in this day and age.  But because you and dad were always a partnership, I never saw it as “female” thing or even necessarily a “mom” thing.  (Nor did you.  Proven by a dad who showed he was just as capable of cooking and cleaning.  And further evidenced by two brothers who enjoy cooking and baking and are more than capable of making beds and washing dishes.)  They were life things. It had nothing to do with a gender role.  Thank you for allowing us in the kitchen from the time we were old enough to hold a spoon.  For teaching us how to bake and giving us the tools and freedom to experiment with making things.  For teaching us how to read a recipe and to use measuring cups.  Thank you for fretting when the house wasn’t “clean enough”…not because it wasn’t but because it meant that you worked to keep the house clean on a normal basis and wanted it to be livable and presentable. And thank you for forcing us to help make it that way.  For teaching us how to dust and properly make a bed from scratch and mend clothes and put on a button.  For doing laundry and washing dishes and making sure we knew we did it, at least in partial, because we were called to be good stewards of what we had and that included keeping things neat and clean and not letting them fall to ruin.  Because of it, I insist on cleaning my bathroom once a week and I fold my clothes before they have a chance to wrinkle and I do my dishes before they’re growing science experiments and I can bake cookies and prepare a meal like the best of them and I can fix a split seam and hem pants.  You didn’t teach me to be a “woman” in these ways; you taught me how to be an adult.  How to, eventually, take care of myself and my home and the people in my care (though they may just be coworkers or friends).  Your “domestic housewife” skills, allow me to be even more independent... 

Furthermore, thank you for those awful chores that we loved to complain about and let you know you were ruining our lives with.  Thank for assigning responsibility and forcing us to act with it.  For reminding us that we were part of a family and that as such we were each in charge of making sure the family functioned and that came with the pieces and parts…from setting the table to taking out the garbage.  Thank you for “Operation Golden Touch” and Saturday mornings when we weren’t allowed to watch TV or play outside until toys were put away and projects completed…because life comes with obligations and expectations and hard work. Thank you forcing me to spend hours picking beans in the garden and weeding the flowerbeds… because everything requires work from somebody or something.  We appreciate the things we have more when we have to work for them.  When we put the effort towards them.  Thank you too for then helping us feel a sense of accomplishment for a task completed.  For helping us feel a sense of pride for a job well done.  From such we were able to learn that hard work came with its own reward…

Thank you for spanking me.  For grounding me.  For taking away privileges.  For denying me dessert and play time and friends over and television.  For setting boundaries.  And for letting us know when we crossed them.  For reminding us that there was a clear difference between what was right and what was wrong and you and dad had little patience for the latter.  You raised us to know better and to act on what we knew.  You didn’t raise us to fear you, but to honor you.  And though we failed (I mean, relatively often. We were kind of naughty. Although I still maintain I got in the biggest trouble for issues which started in intense curiosity.  Like cutting open the screen with the knife.  I mean, aside from the fact I lied about it… it was SO cool!), your expectations at home carried over to the way we conducted ourselves at school and at friends’ houses and in public. Thank you for so deliberately and specifically (and lets admit it, sometimes through clenched teeth) reiterating “your choices are ‘yes mom’, ‘no mom’, or ‘is it up for discussion, mom?’”  We knew that if we followed with “is it up for discussion?” the answer was almost always “No. Try again.” But we also knew you were fair and that when we approached things maturely without the argument and backtalk, life was up for discussion quite often and you and dad would listen patiently to “our side of the story”.  As adults, perhaps more so than ever before, we are able to see just how fairly you dealt with us.  How many of our own mistakes you allowed us to make.  You taught us that our decisions had consequences and sometimes punishments but you reminded us that we were capable of more because those decisions were not who we were…

Thank you for never demanding that we brought home the “A”.  For never demanding a standard we weren’t capable. Thank you for never making your acceptance or approval contingent upon our accomplishments.  But thank you too for allowing us never to settle for anything less than our best and making that your expectation.  For telling us that a “B” we worked really hard for was just as good and in some ways much better than an effortless “A”.  For knowing what we were capable of and compelling us to strive for that and being proud of us knowing we had given it what we had.  Thank you for not comparing us to each other when it came to things like school.  For never expecting me to really awesome at math just because Faith was or telling Caleb that he should be an avid reader and good at English because I was or that Amelia should be great with puzzles and science because Caleb was… Instead you allowed us each to have our own strengths and celebrated our differences.  Along similar lines, thank you for not being the mom (or the parents) to force us into sports or dance or drama or music lessons or any other number of insane and inane extracurriculars.  Thank you for allowing us a) to simply be kids and to b) choose what we were interested in and to pursue those instead. Thank you for supporting us in our individual hobbies and clubs and teams.  For not forcing us to stick with a second season of something we hated but for making us complete whatever season we were in…to see a commitment through to the end.  To give things a “fair shake”. To persevere.  To not let our teammates down.  To never give up or quit when something didn’t go our way.

Thank you for every time you told the five of us to “fight nice”…knowing we were going to have it out but that we still had a responsibility to each other’s personhood and emotions.  Thank you for making us hold hands on the couch until we could be kind.  Thank you for making us apologize.  Thank you for reminding us that our siblings were our training ground for every annoying and rude and terrible person we would ever meet.  That we couldn’t go around socking every person that ticked us off.  Thank you for every time you told us about your roommate in college who used your shampoo without asking and reminded us that life at home could one day get very real.  

Thank you for being thrifty.  For never buying me name brand clothes.  For making insane meals out of the most random items.  For balancing a checkbook.  For “making due with what we had”.  You raised us to appreciate what we had.  To thank God that our needs were met.  To not expect life to be handed to us on silver platter.  For a large family on a pastor’s salary, we sometimes didn’t get what we wanted but we were never without the things we needed.  You reminded us that who we were wasn’t defined by the things we wore.  That a higher cost didn’t mean higher quality.  And that it was possible and essential to live within side one’s means.  We weren’t “cool” but we also weren’t spoiled.  Our friends didn’t like us for our image and we grew up learning to be both grateful and generous…

Thank you for acting out of hospitality.  It’s got to be on your list of spiritual gifts.  And I have yet to bring home a person who would disagree or tell you otherwise.  Thank you for the way you make each one of our friends (and shoot, your friends for that matter!) “feel at home”.  Get to know them.  Take care of them.  Invest in them.  Thank you for being “Mama K” to literally dozens of young people scattered from here to the corners of several states.  For being another (and for a couple of them, a primary…) mother figure to anyone who enters our doors.  For embracing them as “one of your own” and making them feel loved and supported in the same way you always did and continue to do for each of us.

Thank you for teaching us to be caring and compassionate and tenderhearted.  Thank you for every person who came to the house bleeding or bruised or having some rash developing somewhere which you were always happy to nurse.  Thank you for letting us watch you care for the world around you out of your gifts and graces.  Thank you for every random person who joined our crazy bunch for dinner or a Sunday meal (probably a harder experience for them than us, looking back.  Ha!).  Thank you for entertaining basic and sometimes actual strangers and taking care of so-many of the “least of these”.  Thank for every time we watched you give food from our own cupboards to someone who stopped at our house because they knew the pastor lived there.  Thank you for giving away things we sometimes thought we wanted (or decided we did once they were gone) to people who needed it more.  Thank you for demonstrating Christ’s love in real ways.  I don’t think it’s any wonder that your four eldest (the exception being the one still in high school, so he doesn’t yet count) have pursued careers and occupations and degrees that deal directly with the care of people.  You’ve demonstrated for us its supreme importance…

Thank you for waking up to listen every time I had a bad dream.  For always making the time to talk and to listen as a teen and adult.  Thank you for kissing us goodnight and wishing us a good morning.  Thank you for taking care of me just as a much as an adult as you did when I was a child because “just because I didn’t live under your roof didn’t make you any less of my mom”.  Thank you for advocating for dozens of doctors appointments.  Thank you for not being willing to settle with a “nothing’s wrong” answer when I was first so sick and pushing for solutions until they made discoveries.  Dr. O can claim whatever she wants; it was your persistence (with some very ironic help from Jesus) which eventually found my cancer.  And it was you who accompanied me to every appointment and transported me to every surgery.  You have always been there for me.  Every late night, tear-ridden, stressed-out phone call.  Every silly question.  Every bumbling frustration.  You’ve always made the time…

As I type and type I feel as if I could and should go on, Mom.  After 25 years – there is much to be said.  Much I don’t want to forget.  You have raised kids of character and integrity.  We’re hard workers and invested and caring and kind.  It is fun for me, as an adult (because let’s face it, it probably never would have happened when I was a kid!) to brag on my siblings.  The lives that they live, the lives they invest in, the lives they impact.  The real ways in which their faith is demonstrated through who they are.  I hope you realize that those are clear reflections on you and Dad.  Some kids are who they are despite their parents.  Some are in spite of their parents.  And the rest are, for good or for bad, because of our parents.  We are flawed and human and a quirky bunch (the quirky definitely has your name written on it!), but we turned out well.  And we have you to thank.  Thanks for being our mom.  For being MY mom.  And should someday I ever become a parent, let alone of any merit, I’ll be able to look back at a letter such as this and confidently say “I have my own mom to thank…”

I love you!

Anika  

Friend For The Day

[A brief introduction...]

First of all...I have about three blogs I've started and have yet to post as I haven't yet quite found a good way to finish any of them.  I'm sure they'll come.  I miss my old writing stomping grounds and the freedom to allow words to be a creative outlet...

That being said, the words which follow aren't new ones.  In sorting through desk drawers and boxes and piles of things that have long since needed a home, I mostly threw away a lot of unnecessary items.  But I also found a few treasures.  Like the remnants of a notebook...about 10 pages left in it...all filled-in and scribbled on.  The back cover page faced me after flipping through a page or two and I read the words "Bored to tears! Can't wait to sleep...in Chapel.  Wow, I'm a terrible person.  Welcome to the end of senior year!"  I was about to toss it while chiding myself for saving something so useless when the front cover faced me instead and I discovered it was filled with not just scribbles and scrawls and terrible but true admittances about my perspectives on chapel...but words.  There were two poems and the poem/story that follows.  I know the two poems have since found homes typed and saved (Sound and Fury even posted on me 'ol blog).  But I couldn't even find a file for "Friend for the Day".

I remember when I wrote "Friend for the Day"...but I don't remember why.  If it was just Anika trying to account for her boredom in chapel with a speaker who had said the same thing every year since she was a freshman or if there was actual inspiration.  I do remember compiling it and thinking if I could find the right illustrator it would make a very cute and even enjoyable children's book...with each stanza taking on its own page.  Probably if you made it through my lengthy "brief" introduction...read it with that tone in mind.  It makes it more fun.  It was fun to find today none-the-less.  After all, who doesn't need a friend for the way?

Friend for the Day

Friend for the day!

Friend for the day!

For just twenty-seven dollars I’ll be your friend for the day!

If you want we can talk;

If you want we can play...

For just twenty-seven dollars I’ll be your friend for the day!

Friend for the day!

Friend for the day!

For just twenty-two dollars I’ll be your friend for the day!

We can climb in a tree;

We could build a fort in the hay...

For just twenty-two dollars I’ll be your friend for the day!

Friend for the day!

Friend for the day!

For just eighteen dollars I’ll be your for friend for the day! 

We could fish in the harbor;

We could swim in the bay...

For just eighteen dollars I’ll be your friend for the day!

Friend for the day!

Friend for the day!

For just thirteen dollars I’ll be your friend for the day!

We can count a billion stars;

We can guess how much the earth weighs...

For just thirteen dollars I’ll be your friend for the day! 

Friend for the day!

Friend for the day!

For only nine dollars I’ll be your friend for the day!

We could color 1000 pictures...

And then put our art show on display!

For only nine dollars I’ll be your friend for the day!

Friend for the day!

Friend for the day?

For only four dollars I’ll be your friend for the day!

We could put milk out for the cats

And collect all the strays?

For only four dollars I’ll be your friend for the day!

Friend for the day!

Friend for the day?

For just one whole dollar I’ll be your friend for the day!

We could shout, we could swing;

We could dance, we could sway...

For just one whole dollar I’ll be your friend for the day.

Friend for the day...

Friend for the day?

For just twenty-five cents I’ll be your friend for the day.

We could play in the mud!

A pig could pull our sleigh!

For just only twenty-five cents I’ll be your friend for the day.

Friend for the day?

Friend for the day?

Even for free I’d be your friend for the day...

If you want I can just go...

But if you want...I would stay!

Because even for free I’d be your friend for the day...

*~*~*

“Friend for the day?”

“Friend for the day?”

Did I hear someone calling:

“Friend for the day!”?

Please say you’re here...

That you didn’t go away...

I could really use a friend for the day!

Excuse me, I’m sorry...

But are you okay?

Were you the one calling:

“Friend for the day!”

I’m new in town...

And I’d just thought I’d say...

If you’re offering, I really could use a friend today...

Friend for the day!

Friend for the day!

It was me!

I was calling “friend for the day!”!

We can fish, we can swim!

We can climb, we can play!

We can jump, we can sing!

We can collect all the strays!

We can guess, we can dance!

We can put our art on display!

I can show you around...

We can talk and we can hang...

I really just want a friend today...

*~*~*

Friend for the day!

Friend for the day!

Everyone needs a friend for the way. 

Someone with whom to talk,

Someone with whom to play.

Who needs you to be their friend today?  

The Confession of a People Pleaser

Alright.

Fine.

I confess.

I...

Am...

A...

People pleaser.

Perhaps a little anticlimactic as some who actually read my blog are long past well aware of this personality identifier, character trait, label (whatever it is you might associate it as).  But, none-the-less, it’s true.  I’m a people pleaser. 

It’s hard to see in such a blanket statement sentence on a computer screen... but this confession comes with the air of an introduction at a support group; said with the melancholy of the admittance of the affliction of an embarrassing disease; thrust into the public arena with a cringe and a flinch of the head and a sagging of the shoulders. 

I’m a people pleaser.

The words alone seem innocent enough to indicate that together they should be quite the opposite of its unfortunate reality.  People: populace, citizens, group, nation, community.  Please: satisfy, gratify, make happy, delight.  Sounds grand!  And that’s part of the problem.  Because it becomes the addiction you love to hate and hate to love and still are somewhere stuck in the dichotomy of both.

I’m a people pleaser.  I would rather everyone always be happy.  Always.  Especially and mainly with me.  Although not quite as deeply afflicted as I once was, I will oft do whatever it takes to remain on your good side, keep you smiling (I genuinely do love to see/make people smile), and make sure you’re taken care of.  I am known to be opinionated (even strongly so) but it is oft silenced or conceded on the part of not having an argument...especially on issues where I feel like your view of me would be somehow tarnished. I have no expressible preferences about most things (legitimately...I don’t know if this feeds or comes as a result of) and if you ask me for it I’ll probably panic to come up with an answer. [And even if I come up with one, I probably won’t be able to say it in fear that it would be contrary to whatever it is you’d like.] As a result, I will always gladly go with whatever you want.  I am quick to take the blame in many situations – even if they had little to do with anything I could have done or controlled – and I hold myself responsible for events and circumstances that weren’t my fault – even if only in my head.  I apologize far more than necessary and I know I shouldn’t but I can’t help it.  If I apologize, perhaps you won’t hold whatever possibly awkward, uncomfortable, or annoying thing I just did against me.  Perchance, most noticeable of all, I have a hard time saying ‘no’.  If you invite me to go somewhere or do something and I might let you down otherwise, the answer is ‘yes’ most of the time.  And, if there is something that needs to be done that you wish for me to do, the answer will be ‘yes’ almost undoubtedly.  I will skip sleep if it means you’ll get a little more; I’ll go the extra mile; I’ll do the project I know you hate (even if I hate it as well) before you have a chance to get to it. I might whimper to myself as I fall asleep at night...but I won’t say ‘no’.

This latter piece is extra dangerous as I’ve justified some of my people pleasing tendencies in the name of “being a servant”.  I truly wish to be one but my motives are sometimes skewed.  I’ve been people pleasing for so long that I don’t see myself as trying to match up to the combined unrealistic expectations of dozens of people, I see myself as a servant.  “This is what Jesus would do.”  I tell myself.  “He gave Himself up for all of humankind.  He wasn’t thinking about Himself.  Jesus served, dangit!  The least I can do is put my selfishness aside and do the same!” 

But that is skewed theology.  Jesus wasn’t a doormat.  And while He did give Himself up for all humankind, while He was gracious and loving to a people who didn’t deserve Him or what He gave, it wasn’t all about me, y’all.  Or you.  Oh sure, we most definitely became the recipients of the blessings which trickled down.  We were given the gift, the ultimate gift, and the love the Father has lavished upon us proves individual worth and value.  Because before we in fact were the one’s missing out... Jesus is a restorer.  He restored broken relationship.  The biggest one being between humankind and God.  That we might be part of who He was and what He was doing.  Still, Jesus wasn’t a people pleaser (far from it actually!)  He was, however, a God-pleaser.  Everything He did – including making Himself servant to all was to serve His Father.  It was for the Father’s glory. 

It’s okay to serve people. (I think it’s even okay to do my list above and feel good about it afterwards 95% of the time.) Even and especially to what seems like a fault to the rest of the world...as long as my priorities are in order.  As long as my goal in serving is to love genuinely as Christ has loved me and point back and continuously to the Father.

I was especially convicted of this the other day.  I was reading through a passage I hadn’t been in for a while...the words were there blatantly clear.  Profoundly obvious.  The verse left little room for interpretation.  Galatians 1:10 reads “Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

There it was.  In plain English.  Other translations screaming the same thing. The words neither taken out of context nor the message I received a possible interpretation of an otherwise ambiguous but potentially applicable verse.  Nope.  Right there.  Paul, who is a big proponent of being a servant to all said it straight up “Don’t be a people pleaser!  Whose approval are you trying to gain?  If you’re doing it so people will like you – ‘EHHH! Wrong answer! Try again’.  It’s God whose vote counts!”  The Message translation phrases the end of the same verse “If my goal was popularity, I wouldn’t be Christ’s slave...”  If you’re just going to cower down to what the world says, why bother?

This is a hard realization for a people pleaser...

Those who know me know probably also know that I oft will say “Safety first is my number two rule.”  It almost always elicits the response of “so what’s your number one??”  I respond with “Jesus!  Because He should always be first and He doesn’t always ask us to do safe things.  But if it checks through Jesus, safety should be second!”  People pleasing is a safe choice.  It means I stay on people’s good sides, everyone is happy, no one is offended and everyone leaves with a generally good opinion of me.  But safety should always be my number two.  Pleasing Christ should be my number one directive always and this is no exception. 

Paul tells us that “to live is Christ to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).  It means that I have to be willing to let go of self and control and the things I hold on to – including what people think of me and to find my passion, my direction, my worth, and therefore life, in Christ. 

So it’s about time I admit it.  Get it out in the open.  Confess.  I’m a people pleaser.  But I’d like to be in recovery.  (And I’d quite possibly like you to join me...)

The Sin of “Go”

Originally written my senior year of college, I found this back today quite at random.  I was surprised to find it wasn't posted when it was originally written.  But it's still good.  And still true.  "Homework" has been placed by any hundred of other things but I still haven't quite recovered.  Nor have some of those in my life. It's for that proverbial "you" I re-post this now...

There remains a classic list of the seven deadliest of sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride.  They are the things which damage the image of God created within us, the relationship we have with Him, with others.  Lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride all carry with them a common thread: self.  In all seven of the deadliest we see, at the heart, a desire to be self-fulfilled, gratified, and serving.  And so we come to realize at the center of the sins which will ultimately choke out our very life, there is an unquenchable thirst for “me”.  And few would argue the seven make a fairly comprehensive list.  It covers in broad categories the specific sins we engage in every day.   Our mind goes easily to this default presentation and tries to avoid with absolute certainty our participation. 

Yet, when we think about the most deadly of sins, some words never come up.  For example, no one ever thinks to warn against the life-stealing nature of “productivity”, “efficiency”, and “busy”.  No one stands to preach the evils of an “honest day’s work with overtime”, a “jammed, packed schedule”, “back-to-back activities”, or the necessity to constantly be “on the go”.  In fact, in contemporary western thought, these are heralded as virtues and triumphed with utter assurance for their positive merit.  Heck, “sloth” sits in the middle of the top seven; we’d hate to be accused of not using time wisely!  Letting one minute fall to waste! 

And so we’ve created the eighth deadly sin: “go”.  It is unique only in that, when looked at objectively, “go” tends to feed our selfish nature while depriving it intrinsically of what it truly needs and desires.  In order to even get a number in the rat race we do rather than be, we drive rather than abide.  One more meeting, one more project, one more paper, one more book, one less meal, one less hour of sleep, one less friend.  “It get’s done!  It always get’s done!”  has become the humorous mantra of the sleep-deprived, over-worked, and under-paid.  If we can just meet up to one more expectation, then maybe...

Maybe it is just “that time” in the semester and, if I were to be honest with myself, I would realize how many semesters of my years prior have had me this close to a nervous breakdown at approximately the same point.  But, perhaps, as a senior, I’ve finally become fed-up with how often the “sin of go” clasps its long, bony fingers around my throat, around my heart, and begins to squeeze.  I have finally got to a point where I can no longer move despite the lack of oxygen, no longer function regardless of necessity. I have realized I live in a culture where we fail to notice this as a dehabilitating disease and instead force it upon each other.  Force it until there is no escape which will not also come with dire consequences. 

Furthermore, we have been trained to believe this is normal, acceptable, and for the best.  Recently, (and ironically), for a class I was required to create a time-management profile.  Detailing in 15 minute increments how I spent my time for the duration of a week.  It assessing the results, in breaking down the numbers to see just where I fell, I was upset, disgusted.  Classes and homework only took up 1/3 of my time (close to 50 hours).  No wonder I was never able to finish everything – I never spent enough time!  Out of 168 hours in the week, I recorded 8 where I was deliberately socializing.  Though accounting for less than 5% of my time, I was sure it should have been less.  “Not acceptable.” became my first reaction as I considered 4% more was used up on activities which had no bearing on real life.  In my mind I was feeling very guilty for spending ten minutes before I fell asleep reading a book which wasn’t required for a class or the one night I spent almost an hour with my hopelessly neglected journal.  How could I make up for lost time?

Yet, my moment-by-moment schedule has left me exhausted, overwhelmed, burnout, and broken.  I canNOT do it all.  I want to.  I want to meet everyone’s expectations...least of all my own...and instead I find myself failing on every front.  What is to be done when a look at any class syllabus comes with the cruel awakening there will be no room for sick days?   When a missed class means automatic missed points for attendance and, in addition, a quiz will be missed which cannot be made up and you will be set perfectly behind?  When emergencies arise and there is no time to complete the one small project which will undoubtedly determine your grade in the class?  When a fall break schedule gets jipped impressively for appointments, group projects, and assignments...and you wonder if it is worth your time to go home this semester at all?  When you want nothing more than to laugh with friends and some days forget to smile because life must be taken so seriously?  When the pressure buildup makes you cry? 

I put my all into everything I endeavor and give past what I have of myself to give.  And, in the end, it is never enough.  I always come up short.  Life always demands more.  And my world crashes in when the assignment doesn’t make the due date.  “This isn’t like me!”  I shout.  “I am the good student, dependable, high quality.  I turn things in on time.  I am responsible.  A hard worker!  Where did I come up short?”  How do I get past this sin of “go”?  The one which has stolen my energy, my time, my passion, and, in many cases, my joy?  Where do I go to rekindle a desire for life, a want for intimacy with God, a life set to ‘slow-down’?  Will the world let me have this?  Will I let me have it?  Or will I forever be on the go?

Daddy's Girl... Head on His Chest

I’m a “daddy’s girl”. 

I’m not embarrassed by the fact. [I’m also a “mamma’s girl” and have a great relationship with my mom.] 

But I do have a special relationship with my dad.  We’re wired in similar ways and he “gets” the way my brain ticks better than most.  When I need to whine and vent or I’m sick, I call my mom.  When I need someone to understand where I’m coming from, I call my dad. The story goes that as a babe, it was my dad alone who could get me to sleep when I was really fussy. There is more than one picture with me napping with him as a wee one...Dad asleep in the chair and me sound asleep with him, curled up on his chest. 

It’s not really surprising or really all that ironic (at least to me), that as an adult, when standing next to my dad, my height next to his, my head lays perfectly on his chest.  If I lean into him or he pulls me in for a hug, my head falls perfectly on his chest.  And when I’m having a bad day or a hard day that’s exactly where I want to be...held by my dad, with my head next to his heart.

And I know I am blessed to have a dad who loves and takes care of me so...even as an adult.  I’ve mentored girls with dads who should have stopped contributing after the sperm (because they’ve literally sucked up everything since in every imaginable way).  I have friends who have dads that are decent men...notable members of society...but nothing special or notable in the father department...they can’t and don’t hug or communicate or interact and never really have.   My siblings and I have never had to doubt how much our father loves us.  (Heck as “Papa John”, friends young and old have been given tastes of a father’s love through my own dad.) My dad is a good dad.   

He reminds me often of the love a father is supposed to have for a child.  And he reminds me of, because he mimics, the love of the Father. 

Throughout scripture, and in especially meaningful ways in the New Testament as Christ defines the relationship with Yaweh by referring to Him as “Abba” – a tender term for father (similar to the way I will still occasionally refer to my father as “daddy”) – the love of God for His children is made evident. 

1 John 3:1, in one of my many favorite verses, states “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” 

My Heavenly Father is a known good God, but also a good father, a good dad.  Both in Matthew (7:11) and Luke (11:13) the words of Jesus are recounted that say that if evil fathers can give good gifts to their children, how much greater the gifts the Father will give to those who ask!  These verses are found in direct context of Jesus telling his disciples to come to the Father and to seek and to ask and come boldly.  I don’t feel as if it is impertinent to translate this to know that if imperfect fathers can love their children in imperfect but good ways (giving good gifts), God can only love in perfect and good ways... He is a good dad.

Admittedly, when I think of my own dad and think of how this is a reflection of the love God has demonstrated to me, I think of an old Carpenter’s Tools song.  A song that recounts the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15) and in the chorus the words reiterate “And then He ran to me; He took me in His arms and held my head to His chest...”  In fact scripture (depending on the translation) says that the father ran and “threw his arms around” his son or “embraced” him. (vs. 20).  I know the full theology behind this parable.  I know Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees about their role in the story.  But still, in midst of it all, I see the simple truth: God loves His children and calls them to Himself. 

Some times, when the days are long and life feels hard...when I’m struggling with the pieces in parts, it is this image of God I need to come to.  I know His love and His faithfulness and presence.  I do my best (although fail often) to rely steadily on the One who Is regardless of the day or situation.  And I am thankful and blessed that when life doesn’t make sense...when I can’t fix the pain or the hurt; when I just need One to understand where my heart is sitting, my God knows me as His child and allows me to know Him as a father. There are many pieces of life that don’t make sense right now.  Pieces that hurt.  Pieces of the world that I can’t fix and can’t hold.  I’m thankful that the world has the same opportunity to be held and to be known. That God takes care of His world far better than I can or ever will (turns out, I’m still not God! Hallelujah!).  I am terribly blessed to have a Father God, that much like my daddy, when I come to seek Him; He takes me in His arms and holds my head to His chest...

“What marvelous love the Father has extended to us!  Just look at it – we’re called children of God!  That’s who we really are.  But that’s also why the world doesn’t recognize us or take us seriously, because it has no idea who he is or what he’s up to.  But friends, that’s exactly who we are: children of God.  And that’s only the beginning. Who knows how we’ll end up!  What we know is that when Christ is openely revealed, we’ll see him – and in seeing him, become like him...”  

1 John 3:1-2 [The Message]