Storms and Decisions

Storms and Decisions

You know those times in life where it seems like decisions pile on top of you all at once and need to be made right now?  And, in and of themselves, most of the choices are manageable but they all stack up and all have a deadline?  Things like:

~Do we transfer the kids to a different school/teacher?

~Do we pour more money into the dying car or cut our losses and run?

~Do we put Dad/Granma/Aunt Sally in a nursing home and if so where is the money going to come from?

~Do we refinance the house?

~Do we get a dog or a security system?

~After school sports or no after school sports?

~Do we say yes to the job or stay where we are?

~Is it better to do the surgery or try physical therapy first?

~Go back to school?  

~Do we find a new church or stay committed here?

Yeah, that was our house last week.  Most of those scenarios aren't ones we are personally facing but someone we know or love has been in them.  Our choices were like those and it's been more than a bit stressful.  My brain is pretty much mush at this point.   I don't have any fingernails left (I know: really, really bad habit- don't try that at home kids!).

But, we prayed about what was before us, sought wise counsel and made the decisions.  And then, we stepped out in faith and followed through.  Some of them are pretty strange.  

For example, we made the deliberate choice to, God willing, have four kids in four different schools, in four different parts of town.  No buses.  Yeah, I'm gonna be living in my trusty Honda Odyssey next school year.  We didn't do that because I love driving all over SoCal but because we feel those are the best places for our kids for now.  I may be cursing that course of action come Fall.   

Anyway, after everything was decided and out of our hands, I felt great.....for about six hours.  

Then panic and doubt set in.

I knew with sudden clarity the fiery terror that swept through Peter's veins when he stepped out of the boat to meet Jesus, only to panic and  start to sink.  (Matthew 14:22-36)

I love Peter.  He was such a bonehead; he talked too much, made rash decisions, had delusions of grandeur, was inconsistent and easily distracted from the work at hand.  He reminds me a lot of myself.  

I too made the choice to 'step out of the boat', the USS Comfort Zone, and walk toward Jesus, who was calling me.  Then I got distracted.  I was very aware of how deep the water was beneath me.  I realized how big the waves were getting. And, how far away the boat was.  It felt very lonely.

I panicked.  

Fear came flooding over me and I started to sink quickly.  My emotions went from zero to haywire in .2 seconds.  It wasn't pretty, ya'll.

Fortunately, I made the same smart choice Peter did and simply said "Jesus!!"  He was there.  And, I knew I was safe.

The thing is, the water beneath us is deep; it always will be this side of Eternity.  The waves are big and getting bigger as time goes on.  Our boats are not reliable.  And sometimes, the choice to get out of the boat seems strange, counter-intuitive, stupid even.

But what I realized this week is that I am far better off with Jesus, out in the water, than I would ever be in some man-made boat of comfort. Honestly, is there any more perfect place to be?  I think not.

A Stupid and Dangerous Game

"Comparison is the thief of joy."

~ Teddy Roosevelt

I have 'radio silent' for a few weeks because I've been playing a stupid and dangerous game.  It's one that I struggle with occasionally and I know how dumb it is.  Sometimes I accidentally slip into it, sometimes I carelessly rush in.  The game?  That great and endless game of "Comparison."

How do I measure up?  

Where am I in the long line of Christianity?  "I'm behind you but way ahead of them so I'm doing okay."

"Is she a better mother than I?  She must be, everything she feeds her kids is organic and homemade."

"Wow...That was a great blog.  I'll never be that good of a writer."

"Is my marriage better than theirs?  Of course it is; we *never* argue about (fill in the blank.)"

And on. And on. And on.

Martha Stewart I am decidedly NOT.  Also, not much in my life is Pinterest worthy.  I don't homeschool, garden, sew, sell anything, etc.  I yell at my kids instead of patiently explain things. I bicker with my husband instead of calmly talking things out and serving him.  We eat fast food less than some but more than we should.  There are a lot of places where I feel inferior or not as good as someone else and, occasionally, places where I feel superior.  Enter the Comparison trap.

It's an endless game.  And a stupid one. Because comparison does one of two things to me.  It either:

A.) Discourages me and gives me an incorrect view of life or
B.) It causes me to start judging those around me and gets me up on my "holier than thou" high horse.

Either of those responses kill my faith. They sabotage what I'm supposed to be doing.  They suck up my time and keep me discouraged or distracted.  I'm no good to God in either of those places.  If I'm elbowing for a better place in line, I've got nothing left to do what I'm supposed to be doing and Satan loves that.

An additional side effect: I will always end up a loser when I compare.  There will always be someone smarter, thinner, richer, happier.  The world is full of people who are better writers, better parents, better organizers, more disciplined, funnier, faster, holier.  The list, like the beat that goes on, is infinite.  The ruler that I measure myself against will leave me coming up short.  Every. Single. Time.

I hate living like that.

In an effort to get myself out of compare/contrast mode, I did a Bible search.  Actually, the Bible has a lot to say about comparison but here's the thing-  it's almost always talking about God, not humans.  Only one time does it talk about comparing to one another....to say "don't do it!" (2 Cor 10:12)  Also, Jesus had a low tolerance to the jockeying for position that the Pharisees and the Disciples were always doing.  If He couldn't stand it with them, I'm thinking that He doesn't like it in me either.

My church is fond of saying that God draws straight lines with crooked sticks.

That would be me.  Right here.  Right now.  I'm pretty dang crooked.  Good thing God can use me anyway.  Regardless of how "_______" I am or am not, when I obey Him, He can use me.

I have to stop looking side to side.  Stop looking behind or in front.  Stop comparing notes with what other people have on their lists.  Look to Jesus.  Do the thing that is in front of me that He as asked me to do.

Today, that was write this post; regardless of how I think it turns out, how good it is compared to other things I read, regardless of what the feedback is.  Put down the stupid hypothetical ruler and write.

On "Being All Here"

"Each one of our lives is shot through, threaded in and out with God's provision, his grace, his protection, but on the average day, 

we notice it about as much as we really notice gravity or the hole in the ozone."  

Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines

Can I say that, so far, this blog is not at all turning out to what I had thought it would be?

To be honest, I'm not really sure what I was expecting but it wasn't this.  Most of the posts have ended up very different from what I thought they would be.  And, I had hoped to be more consistent than I have been.  I'm not sure if this is good, a sign that I'm following where the Spirit would lead, or if it just means that I'm a loose cannon on that storm tossed ship, The Internet.  I guess only time will tell.

One thing has been exactly as I had hoped though.  Blogging has forced me to slow down and pay attention.  I am tired of living life in a blur and my title, Being All Here, is an attempt to focus my brain, my thoughts on the here and the now.

Being a historian, I have a strange relationship to time.  I love it and yet I hate it.  I tend toward looking backward or looking forward without really looking around right now.  And, being a goal/task oriented personality, I have the hateful (to me) habit of blowing off present in favor of the past or future.  Anchoring my brain in moment is very hard for me.  Add to that what Ann VosKamp calls "mother-tired" and I turn numb.

Also, I am a handful of short years away from the Big 4-0.  This is a good thing but it is a little sad when I think that last decade of my given moments has simply evaporated.

Dash-1 (helicopter speak for the first helo in a formation, or in our house, the first child) is eye level with me now.  His hands are as big as mine.  I cannot keep his feet in shoes.  And yet, when I look at him, I don't see my Man-cub, on the rim of that vast and thrilling canyon of teenager-hood.  I see my little man; feeding cheerios to the dog from his high chair, lining his Hot Wheels on the windowsill, trying to hold his squirming body still to tame his wild hair.  That baby boy is gone, in a good way, but gone just the same.  I don't remember much of the intervening years.

But blogging is helping me to push aside the crowding voices and be in the minute.  To slow down.  To think.  To rest and to be here.  To hold on to right now so that I can actually remember it later.  To become a deeper person.  I can't write about something without thinking about it first and I'm liking this side effect.

One of my all time favorite books is Mark Buchanan's The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath.  I've read it at least 20 times and find something new every time.  In it he says:

"Being in a hurry.  Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me.  I cannot think of a single advantage I've ever gained from being in a hurry.  But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all that rushing.  Through all that haste, I thought I was making up time.  It turns out I was throwing it away."  (emphasis added)

Yes.  THAT.

I'm slowly learning to:

~Let go of the hurry and the task.

~To pay attention to the tears when the brush gets caught in Dash-2's hair.

~To listen to the Christmas songs that Dash-3 sings as she colors, in February.  Or to watch and smile at her self-invented, yoga-ish routine she does in the living room.

~To notice when Dash-4, the baby, is entirely too quiet and intervene before it becomes a massive mess.

~To take pictures of....whatever, to help me see it, really see it.

Hopefully, eventually, I will do these things not because I might blog about them but just for the sake of marking them in my conscious.  But for right now, Being All Here is helping me to be all here.