The Old Man Is Snoring

I need sunshine.  I didn't actually know this about myself until I spent the majority of June through August staring wide-eyed at the gray sky that stalled over my home state, providing Atlanta with the summer that wasn't.  I tried not to let the rain get me down.  I tried to focus on all the wrinkles I would never have because the summer of 2013 was mainly spent indoors.  Still, the seemingly endless gray skies leaked into my soul, and I found my entire life began to look a bit cloudy.  Even the brightest blessings had a darkened hue, and life felt soaked with dullness as the water continued to fall. 

The thing is, when I’m feeling a little down about life, which apparently happens to me if the sun refuses to shine as often as it refused to shine this summer, I begin to wonder where my allegiance truly lies.  I claim that I love God.  I announce that I love him.  I even believe that I love him.  But do I really love Him, or do I simply love His gifts?

When the sky turns so blue it makes my heart leap inside my chest, I look up and say, “Thank you God for this perfect day.”  When Charlie runs off the baseball field with a wide grin on his face after striking out two batters in a row, I look up and say, “Thank you God for my healthy, happy son.”  When Libby snuggles up next to me in her bed and reads aloud, I look up and say, “Thank you God for my bright, capable daughter.”  When Adam folds me into his chest and makes me feel safe and secure and treasured, I look up and say, “Thank you God for my amazing, loyal husband.”

Every single day, I express my gratitude to God for the blessings he has bestowed upon me.  Thank you God for my home, for food, for friends and family and fun.  

But when do I just say . . .

Thank you, God. 

When do I watch the raindrops streak across the window for the third straight day and thank Him?

When do I feel the knot in my throat after being deeply hurt and thank Him?

When do I watch my children struggle and doubt and fail and thank Him?

The truth is . . . I don’t.

I love Him for the gifts, the blessings, the good things.  I love Him when life is going well, when I feel happy, when everything seems to be working out according to my plans.  And I’m supposed to love Him for all of it.  For the sorrow and the fear and the anxiety and the OCD and the pain and the loss and the misery. 

The rain requires thanks.  The sadness requires thanks.  The son who shrugs his shoulders because he’s past the point of believing his parents know best requires thanks.  The daughter who takes a tone you’ve never heard and never want to hear again requires thanks. The husband who doesn’t always want the same things his wife wants requires thanks. Because the gifts of God aren’t what makes God good. 

HE.  IS.  GOOD.

No matter what.  Despite everything.  All the time.

It’s hard to give thanks for circumstances we wouldn’t choose.  It’s hard to give thanks when exactly what we don’t want to happen, does.  Yet it’s in those moments that we truly live out our faith.  If we can be grateful for the tough times, the valleys, we show others what we truly believe.  We show that our trust and our hope are in God.  And if we can look up and say, “Thank you, God” when it’s the last thing in the world we want to do, we show Him what we really believe.  That He is in control.  That His timing is perfect.  That He is all we need.

It’s raining again today.

Thank you, God.  

Psalm 34 

I will always thank the Lord; I will never stop praising him.

I will praise him for what he has done; May all who are oppressed listen and be glad!

Proclaim with me the Lord’s greatness; Let us praise his name together!

Writing 101

I love stories.  Always have.  Give me a good story and I’ll lose track of time, reading voraciously to see what will happen next, who winds up where, how it all ends.  When I pick up a book, my husband grins at me over the cover and says, “See you when it’s over.” 

I’m ashamed to admit it because I consider myself a fairly intelligent adult, but I read the entire Twilight series in less than a week.  I was furious when my book club chose the first installment as one of our monthly reads.  Even told the woman checking me out at Barnes and Noble how irritated I was about spending my husband’s hard earned money on a book for high school kids about vampires.  Seriously . . . vampires?  I was a mother with two children.  I had important duties to tend to.  There were people counting on me to wipe their bottoms and cut their grapes and teach them the alphabet and I certainly did not have time in my life to read about vampires.   I was pissed.  The woman told me I’d be back within a week for number two.  I smirked.  I scoffed.  I sneered.

I went back the next day for number two.

I’m not saying Twilight is quality literature, people.  It didn’t change my life or impact my future or improve my soul - the Bible is where I go for that kind of stuff.  I’m not even saying it was quality writing, although you gotta hand it to a lady who is creative enough to come up with a vampire/werewolf/human love triangle and make it a worldwide sensation.  Jane Austen was never a bazillionaire. 

What I am saying is that Twilight was a good story because it created in its readers a need to see how it was going to end.  I HAD TO KNOW – is Bella going to become a vampire or not?????

Thankfully, if you were team Edward, which I was (how could anyone in their right mind not be), Twilight had a happy ending.  Because what I am not ashamed to admit, is I have always been a happy ending kind of girl.  I will never be a fan of books that don’t wrap things up in a neat little package with a bright, shiny bow on top.  If a book ends badly, or not at all – you know the kind - one that leaves you hanging so you must decide for yourself what happened next.  Damn those authors with commitment issues.  We count on them to finish their flipping books.  That’s what you do when you write a book – YOU. FINISH. IT.  Sorry – clearly, I have my own issues.  So like I was saying, if a book doesn’t provide an ending or has a tragic one, I likely won’t recommend it.  Life is tragic enough.  My escape mechanisms need to be all rainbows and butterflies.

Recently, I’ve found myself encouraging some friends in tough seasons to remember that the very best stories in life are written by the author of life Himself.  

“God is writing your story this way for a purpose.”

“I can’t wait to see what your next chapter is like.”

“Just think what God might have in store for you soon.”

Yep.  Said all those things to people who are important to me.  They smiled and nodded and thanked me, and then probably walked away cursing my name under their breath because who does she think she is claiming to know anything about God’s writing skills.

Here’s the thing.  We would probably ALL write our stories differently.  I certainly would.  If I were writing my own life story, trust me, there would be some major plot changes, not to mention totally different main characters.  If I were writing my own story, I would be smarter, funnier, taller, thinner, prettier, more successful, and let’s not kid ourselves, a whole lot wealthier. I would live in a perfect country with no social or economic issues, a perfect community with no traffic or crime, a perfect house with every room furnished exactly the way I want it.  My car would always have a full tank, the sun would shine every day, and the laundry would do itself.  I would never put my foot in my mouth or show up late or fail so colossally I want to stay in bed for days.  I would give and serve and love from sunrise until sunset without ever growing weary or resentful.  I would find forgiveness easy.  

If I was writing my own life story, my family would never turn their back on me, my neighbors would be my best friends, my best friends would never let me down, complete strangers would make me smile each day.  My children would use their manners at all times and dress in the clothes I want them to wear and obey the first time I asked.  They would be thoughtful and helpful and grateful and joyful and make perfect grades.  And they would never track mud in the house. 

If I could write my life story, my husband would agree with everything I said.  He would keep his hair and his muscles and (just thinking ahead here) his libido.  We would parent as a team no matter what and fall more in love each day and retire early to a tropical island with a housekeeper and a chef and a masseuse at our beck and call.   

If I were writing my own story, there would be no sorrow.  There would be no illness.  There would be no sin.  There would be no death.  Which really means . . .

There would be no need for Jesus. 

You see, THAT is why God is writing our stories.  He wants us to know Jesus, because without Jesus, our stories can never end well.  Without Jesus, there are no happy endings.       

The best stories aren’t the perfect ones.  Those aren’t the page-turners that keep us up at night.  The best stories are the ones that take us on a wild journey we could never have predicted and might never have chosen – the ones that truly lead us somewhere important.  Somewhere we might not have planned to go.

The best stories have interesting characters.  The kind you can relate to and share life with because their imperfections are as glaring as your own – the husbands with receding hair lines who make you laugh so hard you cry, the children who forget to brush their teeth but remember you promised to bake cookies after school, the friends who reach out to help before you can even ask.   

The best stories come with unexpected twists and turns that leave you wondering what in the world the outcome could possibly be.  They have flawed people and bad timing and more mistakes than you can count.  They have selfishness and greed and envy and cancer.  Sometimes they have abuse.  Sometimes they have divorce.   Sometimes they have violence and corruption and war.  And they always have death.  They are hard.  They are messy.  They are ugly.  They are filled with pain.

And they are our stories . . . written by Him to point the way to our happy ending.  We simply have to keep reading, one chapter at a time, and remember that there is no better author for our life than the Author Of Life. 

God is not writing a story of perfection for me.  He is writing a story of purpose.  He wants my story to mean something.  He wants it to change me . . . to take me to the places He alone knows I need to go.  Most importantly, He wants it to lead to a happy ending . . . to Jesus.  Because God wants my story, and yours, to last for eternity. 

Appreciating Georgia (Both of Them)

Dog ownership gets more educational with each passing day. Georgia is not even nine months old, but she's like this nutty professor who shows up to class thirty minutes late with broken glasses, a crooked bowtie, and plaid pants four inches too short, yet somehow leaves you with a nugget of wisdom you'll treasure for the rest of time.

I wouldn't say our doodle puppy has a whole lot of common sense.  Georgia isn't brilliant in any obvious ways.  She plays with bumblebees on the back deck, thinks she's capable of running at top speed on hardwood floors and then stopping on a dime (you really should see that trick), and believes everyone on the face of the planet wants her to lick them.   One of her most interesting habits though, is her ability to play follow the leader. 

Georgia follows me.  If I walk into the bathroom, so does she.  If I sit down at the kitchen table, she sits beside my chair.  When I go upstairs to put laundry away, Georgia simply must come along. 

Georgia knows her people.  And her greatest desire is to stay close to them.  Which, as usual, got me thinking . . .

For almost forty years, my entire world has centered on a tiny patch of earth in suburban Atlanta. I have actually resided within a ten square mile radius of Gwinnett County since the day I was born.  I did go to college seventy-five miles away, but I’m not sure that counts.  When you add it up, I was only in Athens for about thirty months of my life, and sadly, I spent most weekends coming home to do laundry instead of enjoying the purple “punch” being served out of fraternity house trashcans all over campus.   

Most of the time, I consider my native status to be unique.  I enjoy the label of homegrown girl, and I love seeing people I know almost everywhere I go because I’ve never lived anywhere but Atlanta, Georgia.  When I was at Northside Hospital preparing to give birth to our first child, I informed our labor and delivery nurse that I had been born in the same hospital.  She was astonished.  Moments like that make me feel pride in my roots. 

Occasionally, however, my pride is replaced with disgust. 

Sometimes, it doesn’t seem at all special that I’ve lived in the same location all my life.  It seems pathetic and short-sided and entirely uninteresting.  Sometimes, I go online to look up real estate in Manhattan simply for the thrill of thinking about life in a place that doesn’t have over seventy streets with the name “Peachtree” in them. 

I realize Atlanta has a lot to offer.  It's a fantastic city in many ways and a wonderful place to raise a family.  The housing prices are among the lowest in the country, there are opportunities to experience a variety of cultural and sporting events all over the city, and even with the recent blip of a floundering economy, the job market has been booming for decades. 

Atlanta has convenient proximity to a multitude of interesting adventures.  In ten minutes, I can be at any number of local parks where my children can play, ride bikes, or go fishing.  I can drive twenty minutes south to shop in boutiques bearing the names of designers whose clothing has graced fashion runways for years.  (Notice I didn’t say I do.  I said I could, if my income bracket went up a few notches.)  In half an hour, I can be lounging on the back of a boat on Lake Lanier.  Never mind that on the boat next to me, there is a sunburned woman wearing a bikini two sizes too small dirty dancing with her boyfriend while funneling a beer.  If I drive an hour north, I can go hiking and camping in the Great Smoky Mountains, and in less than five hours by car, I can frolic in the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.  

There are other reasons to love Atlanta.  The city is full of jogging trails, playgrounds, golf courses, ice-skating rinks, bowling alleys, frozen yogurt establishments, malls, movie theatres, beautifully landscaped subdivisions where every road ends in a cul-de-sac, and twenty million ALTA teams. There are hundreds of restaurants featuring food from all over the planet and you rarely have to drive more than a few minutes to find the motherland Target.  True, traffic can occasionally wreak havoc on your plans and you have to know where to look to find the truly “charming” areas of the city, but most of the time, I am aware of how lucky I am to make my home in Atlanta.  There are people in the world who live without running water and paved roads and democracy.  I live in a great city.  Still, although my husband would never agree to the idea of packing up the family and moving to Soho, sometimes, I’m completely open to the idea. 

Sometimes, I think I need a change of scenery, a change of pace, a change of perspective.  I wonder if it would be good for me to spend a little time missing a few of the conveniences of which I’ve grown so accustomed.  Perhaps if I had a chance to depart from the only home I’ve ever known, I could one day return to it with a greater sense of appreciation for all it has to offer.

Maybe, if I had to squeeze my family into a four-hundred square foot apartment with a kitchen the size of a closet, I would stop wishing for marble countertops and new appliances in my current kitchen.  Maybe, if I had to walk ten blocks to find a patch of grass, I would enjoy the half-acre lot I live on now instead of coveting the house down the street on three acres.  You know, the one with the marble countertops and new appliances.  And the hand scraped hickory floors.  And the mudroom.   And the . . .

Okay, that’s enough of sharing the whole “where my treasure is there my heart will be also.”  Clearly, my heart has up and relocated to a fabulous new address, and is now unable to pay even a small percentage of the mortgage.

The thing about home though, is that it really isn’t about a house, or a yard, or even an apartment overlooking Central Park.  And when I contemplate the idea of moving away, there are anchors around my soul that keep me rooted right where I am.  Their faces fill my mind when I think about starting over in a new place, and I realize . . . my place is with them. 

My place is with my family.  My place is with my friends.  My place . . .  is with my people.  The people who know me and care for me and love me in spite of the fact that my heart is so flawed it spends more time longing for Carrera marble countertops than it spends longing for world peace. 

Home. 

It’s where your people are, and as Georgia well knows, you should always stay close to your people.   My people are in Atlanta, and for now, a brownstone in Soho will just have to wait.  


***  After reading this, I suggest you cue up "Home" by Phillip Phillips and dance around your kitchen without spending even one millisecond thinking about Carerra marble countertops.  Oh, and stay as far away from Lake Lanier as possible.

Have you ever been so shocked by a person’s behavior that you are completely unclear about how to behave in response?  Have you ever cut someone out of your life?  Has someone ever cut you out of theirs?   It’s unfathomable to me that a person you care for, and believed cared about you, could decide they no longer want you at all. 

It’s happening in my life right now - the cutting out by another - and it hurts.  I know I did not do anything wrong, yet I feel guilty.  I also feel angry and confused and frightened and . . . the emotions are too tangled in the story to name. You see, this person is important.  This person who no longer cares to know me - she is someone I planned to be in touch with until the end – someone I would have worked it out with at all costs, despite our many differences.  And I think what hurts more than anything else isn’t the fact that she’s cut me out of her life.  It’s that in doing so she’s made it clear my children mean nothing to her.  Not only is that unfathomable to me, it actually feels . . . unforgiveable.

And so, I keep asking myself how to behave.  And I keep promising myself I’ll take the high road, although, when I’m honest, it’s not the route I want to take.  I know precisely what Jesus would do in this situation. And the reason I know I need Him?  What he would do is exactly the opposite of what I would like to do.

Love your neighbor as yourself. 

That’s what he said and it sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?

But loving others as we love ourselves . . . that’s a big command.  HUGE. 

Let’s face it people – we love ourselves.  If there was ever a time and place in the existence of the universe that people have loved themselves, it is right now in the United States of America.  We are so in love with ourselves we spend outrageous amounts of money to have the right clothes, purses, and shoes while others mothers in other countries sell their blood to feed their babies.  We are so in love with ourselves we pay people to do our nails, lighten our hair, massage our bodies, build our muscles, perfect our skin.  We are so in love with ourselves we share our thoughts and feelings with anyone who will listen via Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and meaningless blogs that allow us to think we’re sorting out the messes of our lives in front of an audience who only roots for our success.

Love yourself?  Yep. I’d say we’ve got that covered.  I certainly do.

It’s the love others part we struggle with. 

When Jesus said love your neighbor as you love yourself, he meant love the stranger in front of you at the store who lingers too long.  He meant love the driver who cut in front of you in the parking lot.  He meant love the teacher who grades unfairly.  He meant love the teenager who plays loud music in the house down the street, and the old friend who makes choices you don't agree with, and the mother at your children’s school who does things differently from you.  When Jesus said love your neighbor as you love yourself, he meant love the child who frustrates you and the business partner who does nothing but complain and the husband who sleeps next to you in bed each night but has never made you feel more alone.  And although I’d like to convince myself there’s an exception to Jesus’ command to love others . . . deep down . . . beyond the black and the dark and the sin in my heart . . . I know I will NEVER find one.

Because when Jesus said love your neighbor as yourself, he meant love everyone in that way, including the one who has chosen to make you an enemy.  Love her despite her anger and accusations.  Love her even though she has made you question the past and doubt the future.  Love her after her words and actions sting so intensely you fear the burn won’t end.  Love her even when you are certain she will never love you back, when she has stated that, in fact, she never loved you back.  Love her when she has verbally attacked you in such a way you can’t stop thinking about it, because you realize that after more than a decade of trying to follow Jesus, there is someone on earth who doesn’t see even a hint of Him in you at all. 

Love her.

And so she won’t.  And yet I will.

I will love because He loves me.  And with Him . . . love always wins.