Miss Right

I put my wild horses pictures on this post first, just so you know where I'm coming from. 

I want to talk about marriage.  You know, because I’m so qualified to do that.  I was a pioneer in my own marriage…riding that wagon through a lot of wild, dangerous, and quiet terrain before I had to bury my partner on the prairie and continue alone. No one escaped unscathed. I am no expert. But I get asked to help with marriages, to give some solace or advice, to offer help or hope, and I want to talk about marriage for a minute. 

Our media is inundated with stories of weddings, but there are very few reports, shows,  or specials that capture the realism of marriage.  Weddings are the sitcom of our time;  marriages are the documentary. Weddings get Emmy’s.  Marriages get Oscar’s. Marriage begins with the pursuit of passion and perfection, but few folks succeed at keeping their eyes on the prize. It’s a privilege and a challenge to be asked to define and refine the difficulties of marriage when I felt so unsuccessful at it.  It’s a tough pursuit for any one of us.  But together, it can be done and done well.

Husband and Wife.

Mr. and Mrs.

His and Hers.

Me becomes We.

Most of us do believe in marriage, eventually.  

Finding that one person you want to revere and annoy for as long as you both shall live isn’t easy. Lancelot found his Guinevere.  Henry found his Eleanor. Petrarch found his Laura. Even Geoffrey Chaucer found his Pippa. Such couples have much to teach us about making love last a lifetime.  If Elizabeth Browning could deliver her sonnets to Robert after the wedding as well as before, and if Tristan could behold Isolde and treasure her heart when they were old and grey, surely today’s couples stand a chance.  A lot of famous couples in history tell us that it can be done.  I agree.  It can be done and done well.  It’s a matter of keeping focused on the prize…the long haul.  It’s a matter of staying true to what you’re doing right, right now, and repeating that process day after day, week after week, year after year.  The ceremony was the fun part; the pomp and circumstance. Staying the course, after the party’s over, that’s the hard stuff.  But worth it…so worth it.

When God invented marriage, he was quite optimistic. The secret of a happy marriage is still, in 2012, a secret. I love to meet couples who’re celebrating 10 years of marriage, or 25, or 53.   They have a lot to teach us. Nuptials nail your promise to paper, bearing witness to what you’ve agreed to give one another.  Living together without marriage vows is just not the same.  When I talk to husbands or wives who’ve met the next benchmark, I hear them repeat the mantra:  Stay the course. Don’t quit.  Don’t give up. 

Here are a few recommendations that will help you on your way.  

• In marriage, you will find your home in each other’s arms-- always go home.

• You will find your hunger satisfied at your own dinner table—don’t settle for the drive-thru. A real meal takes time to prepare and enjoy. You’ll get better at it.

• You’re not passengers in a wedding limo.  In marriage you’re in the front seat;  sometimes the pilot and other times the copilot.  It’s a global trip.  But there’s a map.  It’s called the Bible.  And it will never lead you astray.  When you lose your way, Jesus is still your GPS.

• You will never quench your thirst in wine or spirits—drink from the same well of living water.

• You don’t have an adoring public like Kate and William. You have a relatively small group of well-wishers.  Seek accountability in the eyes of God, not in the eyes of the world.

• You’re not in a marriage to get happy; you’re there to give happiness to your partner and the family you’ve created.  Don’t look for what you can get out of marriage;  look for what you can give.

• Marriage is a union of body, mind, and spirit. Don’t neglect or disrespect the body, mind, or spirit of your spouse. A headache every night turns into a loveless marriage and someone who is starving will become discouraged, disheartened, angry, or apathetic.  No one needs sex.  We all need intimacy.  There's a difference. 

• You will fight and argue; fight fair and fight clean. If you shame or humiliate your partner, you are reducing who you profess to be and you will not be trusted. Remember that the root of every argument is self-protection.  Ergo, ego.

• Marriage is quantum physics:  One plus one equals two that become one.

• At the end of the day, forgive the slights.   In the real scheme of things, they don’t add up to a pile of beans.

Whoever said marriage was impossible never tried to nail pudding to a tree.

You can do it. Together. 

Safety Net

I have never longed to jump out of an airplane, much less dive off a cliff, bridge, or other scary height. My brother, Steve,  used to jump off Stillhouse Lake bridge in high school and I thought he was nuts. He did, too.  My dad jumped out of airplanes for a living, but he said they were all night jumps (he had his eyes closed). My brothers and husband earned parachute badges, because that's what the military expected them to do.  But my girls, my girls....why do they insist on doing this?  They know that I am going to look for the hidden meaning, for the reason behind such decisions.


I think we all long to understand our safety nets.  What protects us from harm?  If you jump out of an airplane, it's a pretty sure thing you're not going to do that without a parachute.  And on your first couple of jumps, someone's gotta travel tandem with you so you know what you're doing, and they'll pull the ripcord in time.  Someone's gotta pack that chute. And someone's gotta sew that chute so it's not going to rip apart.  Someone's gotta fly to an acceptable altitude to push you out of that plane.  And someone's gotta prepare that plane for flight.  And someone's gotta prepare that pilot for safe transport.  You get my drift.  There are layers and layers of protection and risk between deciding to jump out of a plane, and actually doing it.


But I didn't have that conversation with Charlotte today.  I said something simple, like, "Be safe."  When she and I were done talking, thus began my conversation with God.  I wasn't wheeling and dealing.  I was just asking God if He would place that airplane safely in the sky, pluck Charlotte out of it with His huge hands, dangle her around in the sky so that she thinks she's jumping freefall, and then still holding her between His index finger and thumb, please just place her back on the ground safe and sound.  I mentioned that it would be okay with me if she scraped her knee on the ground just a little, not an injury, just a little rough spot,  so maybe it'll discourage her from going again.  You know, just in case. She can jump out of an airplane for one reason, and one reason only:  
He always has us in His hands, in every moment.

Family Love

With the month of July come three opportunities to thank God once more for my family…we celebrate the birthdays of Lauren, Michelle, and Charlotte. They always hate it when I say I was really fertile in October, so I’ll say it again just to get under their skin. That’s what families do…we get under each other’s skin.

As we raise our children, we have the opportunity to rewrite history…we can do the things we want to do differently with our children as compared to the way we were raised by our own parents.  Some of us have a really long list of how we want to do things differently.  My list is pretty short.  But either way, we can revise, revisit, and relearn how to be a good mom or dad.   Re-parenting gives us a way to release the past and the future all in one fell swoop.

When I look at the life my parents gave me, and what I have tried to do differently as a parent and grandparent, I think the first and foremost revision falls squarely in the spiritual realm.  When we were little, my mother took us to Sunday school and church.  We were each baptized at some point in one denomination or another. We weren’t “Lutherans” or “Baptists”…we were Protestants, and this had to do with the fact that we attended military chapels for the most part.

I don’t remember ever seeing my father in church except at our weddings.  He had faith, I know that for sure.  But he had no desire to practice his faith within the walls of a church.  He would tell you there was no mistaking the fact that we each need God, and he found that out firsthand in a foxhole.  He had a general mistrust for organized religion, and I don’t know where that came from.  His mother was very religious, as well as very spiritual.  She lived with us on and off during my childhood, and I have a clear picture of her sitting in her bed in my room, reading her Bible.  I also have a clear picture of her with boobs down to her knees that she hoisted into her bra each morning, but that’s another conversation. She knew her Bible so well, and it showed in the kind of life she led.  She was gentle in nature; I never saw her angry or upset.  Her kindness was a part of my father, and it is now a part of my brothers and me. There were things my parents did that she disagreed with, such as their cocktail hour, but she never interfered.  She would occasionally ask for a little medicinal brandy, but she stayed out of the fray when it came to vocalizing her opinions. I wish I were more like her in that regard. 

My mother was raised a little differently.  She shared memories of her early childhood that included her father’s disappearance, her mother’s remarriage, and difficult teen years. She would not say that faith mattered to her but she showed us, by taking us to church regularly in our early years.  She would say that by the time we reached adolescence, she was tired of fighting to get us to go to church, so she quit taking us.  I think it was lonely for her to take us to church by herself. And that was that.  Over the years, no amount of convincing could get her to go back.  By the grace of God, each of us kids found our way back nevertheless. When we’d visit our parents in our adult years, or they’d visit us, they would not entertain the idea of going to church.  It just wasn’t going to happen.

Door-to-door Christians were not welcome.  I can remember my mother hotly cutting off anyone who rang the doorbell to share his or her beliefs with her.  That was never going to cut it with her.  My parents were not hostile towards Christians; they just did not want anyone to impose their beliefs on them. They were generous to the needy in their own way; they did this anonymously and did not seek or want public or private recognition.   My father would say, “God doesn’t owe me anything.”  When I told him that was the beauty of the gift; all He asks is for us to receive, he thought it just sounded too good to be true. Neither my mother or father wanted proselytizing; once they figured out where a conversation was going, they would nip it in the bud.  To win their hearts in terms of trusting God, you had to show them by your example what it meant to believe in Jesus.  Telling them never worked. 

I run into this same issue with my own children.  When faced with a problem, they do not want me to use the “what would Jesus do” approach.  They don’t trust it at all.  It’s not a matter of not trusting God; it’s a matter of not trusting what people do with the word of God.  We can all point to one event as a turning point in our spiritual walk as a family,  and we have each had to deal with that wound both corporately and individually over the years. 

When Bo died, the pastor of the little community church we were attending as a family came to our house to discuss the service.  I was separated from Bo at the time, but even when we were married, he didn’t go to church with us, so if I had a conversation with a pastor as a parent, it was just me; we weren’t a unified team.  The pastor asked how we wanted to remember Bo, and we talked about his life and the hope that our family needed for healing.

The service was a hot mess.  Our good friend, Pete Marion, spoke eloquently and lovingly about Bo, and it meant a great deal to all of us.  My brother, Todd, spoke quietly and succinctly about God’s love for Bo and for us.  Then the pastor spoke, and it went downhill from there.  He made it clear that we didn’t really know what the future would be for Bo.  Did he believe in God?  Maybe, maybe not.  Was he saved?  Maybe, maybe not.  Did he go to heaven?  Maybe, maybe not.  Did he do well as a father, husband, son, brother, friend?  Maybe, maybe not.  In a few short minutes, he managed to offend just about everyone.  It was all we could do to get through it. 

A week later, I went to my pastor and asked, “Was that the message God laid on your heart for our family?”

He said, “Yes, pretty much.”

I don’t think so.  I know he missed the mark.  And that’s what we do as Christians.  We miss the mark a lot.  Without consistent, quiet, and mature study and reflection on God’s word, we miss the message that God has for us and we miss the message that God gives us to share with others. 

My children deserved to be surrounded by the hope, the grace, and the love of Christ that day, but a careless pastor neglected his responsibility to that little congregation of 5.  He exercised judgment, not compassion. His eye seemed to be on all the visitors instead of the five young people sitting on the front pew, waiting for him to say something that would help them make sense of all this. People asked me later if he was trying to drum up church members. It was a confusing time for all of us. I could not speak for why he said the things he said. I had to accept that as wrong as the message seemed to be in my way of thinking, God had permitted it nonetheless.  Without the love of our family and friends, that day would have drowned us in grief. It was going to be a hard enough road;  why would anyone want to make it harder?

As a parent, how I wish I could reparent my children during this time of our lives.  Instead of finding a new church home for us, I hid out.  I made excuses on Sunday mornings.  I got busy with other activities and tested the water occasionally at church events like vacation Bible school or TV evangelism, but I let my children down as their mother and spiritual leader of our home. 

I know I can cut myself a certain amount of slack; I was just trying to make it through each day, putting one foot in front of the other to take care of our five children.

And yet.  And yet.  I had a responsibility to these five youngsters; they were looking at all of the adults in their lives to figure out how to live.  They saw my parents as pillars of safety and security; they knew that no matter how much they hurt, no matter how much their mother was hurting, their grandparents were squarely in their corner.  This spoke volumes to them about the love of God and His provision for us as a family.

For us, as a Christian community, I think this is where the rubber meets the road.  Where are we for those who are hurting in our midst?  Are we present?  Can we be trusted?  Are we real?  How do we love?

I have tried to show my children a good and right and real example of what it means to have faith and to follow Christ in my words, actions, deeds.  I am still working on it.  I will spend the rest of my life trying to show them that Jesus matters.  When they parent their own children, they will have to right the wrongs; adjust their parenting styles and decisions to reflect a higher version of what God wants and desires for their own families.  I don’t want them to be confused about the blueprint, or where it comes from.  I want to be stunned by what God does in their lives.  He has stunned me already, in so many ways.  I want my children, their spouses, and my grandchildren to know Him intimately, as their rock and their shield.  He has been that for me.

My brothers and I, each of us believers, honor our parents by our example in living lives that demonstrate what it means to believe in Jesus.  When we said goodbye to them on this earth, we had faith that God had taken them home, unto Himself, with the mustard seed of faith firmly planted in their hearts.  I have great respect for what my mother and father believed and came to understand about God through the course of their lives. In their suffering they did not cry out or complain; they accepted and understood the grace that God had given them each day of their lives. They had great courage, and I draw from that every day.  My brothers and I, each of us believers, try to show our children and grandchildren by our example what it means to believe in Jesus, so that when our children and grandchildren say goodbye to us on this earth, they will have faith that God has taken us home, unto Himself, hopefully with a harvest of hearts changed by the reflection of God that they’ve experienced in us, in our daily walk.

As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.

For He knows what we are made of, remembering that we are dust.

As for man, his days are like grass—he blooms like a flower of the field; when the wind passes over it, it vanishes, and its place is no longer known. 

But from eternity to eternity the Lord’s faithful love is toward those who fear Him, and his righteousness toward the grandchildren of those who keep His covenant, who remember to observe His instructions.

The Lord has established his throne in heaven,

And His kingdom rules over all.

Praise the Lord,

All his angels of great strength,

Who do his word, obedient to his command.   Ps 103: 13-21










p.s.  Another July birthday! Happy birthday to my brother Stacy, who was born on my dad's birthday, July 3rd. 

Angry Birds

My grandkids play this game called “Angry Birds.” I really couldn’t figure out the point. Then I realized that it’s kind of a healthy tool. These birds get mad, and then they do something about it. Sometimes their actions are effective, and at other times they make a bigger mess. There really are some life lessons hidden in the subtext. Are there subliminal programmers at work? I may be overthinking it. But one of the areas in my life that I wish I had figured out better when I was a young woman is in the area of emotions. I wish I had understood better how to express my own sadness or anger, so that I could have taught my children better strategies for doing the same. I love my parents, and am grateful for them every single day; every single moment. Do you feel a ‘but’ coming on? When I was a little girl, and well into my teens, okay, fifties, if I felt angry or sad, I was always told to go to my room. I wasn’t allowed out until I was back in a happy mood. I don’t think that was always a bad idea. Sometimes I was just a brat, and I needed correction. But other times, I felt bad, sad, afraid, or angry, and I needed to find my voice. Most of the time, I was taught that anger, fear, and sadness were “negative” emotions, and I’m not sure that’s true. I wish I knew how to express righteous anger. I wish I could express anger without tears. But I can’t. My parents had different ways of sharing their strategies for dealing with anger. My dad carried an imaginary rooster around in his shirt pocket. If we were pouting or sad, he would take his rooster out of his pocket, squeeze it between his thumb and index finger, and tell us, “This rooster’s going to poop on your lip.” You can bet that you sucked in that pouty lip pretty damn quick. When he was G-3 at Fort Hood, he didn’t want to get confused about what buildings and services were under his command, so he painted them all Infantry blue and put a big yellow smiley face on the side that said, “Have a Nice Day.” He was that kind of guy. He might have been a warrior, but he did not like conflict. My mother had no tolerance for the anger or sadness. She was fearless that way. You just flat got sent to your room. We always knew it was “mom’s way or the highway.” It would have been handy if someone had asked you later, “What were you so mad about?” But that never happened. My parents raised us just like most folks did in their generation. We were spoiled, and it was their way of creating a balance. In their childhoods, their families were coming off the Great Depression; there were world wars. Pondering your navel was inexcusable. If someone did you wrong, you better build a bridge and get over it in about twenty minutes. And yet. We do have the right to be sad. And angry. And we do need to find a way to say what needs to be said; to do what needs to be done, without worrying that our relationships are going to end or we’re going to have a disgusting mess on our bottom lip. When my children were sad or angry, I didn’t send them to their rooms, but I’m not sure I did all I could do to help them express their true feelings. I think they tried to spare me a good bit of honest reflection because I was a single mother for so long, but they seem to have gotten over that in their adult years. I think they each deal with anger, fear, and sadness very differently, and I realize that’s completely normal, too. But wouldn’t it be a healthy thing to be able to say what you mean, mean what you say, and get heard and understood in the process? Wouldn’t that kind of communication be refreshing, knowing that your love for each other was secure, unconditional, and not tied to how you were feeling or not feeling at the moment? I’m the woman who apologizes to the store clerk when she’s rude to me. I’m the one who pays the mechanic for shoddy work. I’m the one who gripes in private but smiles in public. I want more honesty. I want to learn how to be an Angry Bird when I need to be. But an Angry Bird doesn’t need an audience, or a victim. Releasing our anger to God is first and foremost. He can transform us when we come face to face with what we are truly feeling. If we “get angry” that implies that our anger has a target and in the midst of our anger, we probably don’t have the clarity we need. Through prayer and supplication, through reflection and introspection, we can figure out if our anger is righteous or self-righteous. Self-righteous anger is sin. Righteous anger requires something of us…we must bring it to God and listen for His direction. It may be to stay silent, or it may be to confront, to change the outcome for the better. I’m working on it. I don’t ever want to get to the point where I’m throwing chairs or sobbing at the counter. But I do want to figure out how to say, “I’m pissed when you do this or that…” or “I’m sad because I wanted this or that…” I want to be a good listener, sounding board, and confidante. I’m not there yet. I’d like to learn how to deal with my anger, fear, or sadness without creating a foul/fowl mess. I’d like to learn how to deal with my anger without putting on a happy face, without making chicken salad out of chicken shit. I want to bring it to Him, and leave it with Him, and be transformed by the renewing of my mind and attitude. As it turns out, Angry Birds don’t have wings. They have to function without any mode of transportation. I’m not sure how they ever win the battle against those green pigs once and for all. But you and I, we have wings, and we have the ability to handle our anger without dropping bombs or morphing into multiple personalities. I want to make myself stronger, and I want to make my family stronger. I want to purge myself of unhealthy habits. I want to invent a new game, “Empowered Birds”…”Confident Birds”…but it’s never going to catch on with that kind of title!

Beautiful Poison

God’s been doing His work in me, and I have learned something from Him in the process, painful as it is. He has shared this with me: I am never holy. Only He is holy. Sin is always within my grasp, within my reach, in my heart, in my thoughts, in my DNA. Just when I think that I am knowing Him, growing closer to Him, gaining ground in terms of spirituality or holiness, He shows me that there it is, sin, like a weed, growing in this beautiful garden that He calls me. Did you know the Easter lily is a poisonous plant? We associate it with new birth, with redemption, with holiness. And yet. And yet. Our God tells us, “Be holy, for I am holy,” in 1 Peter 1:13-16. He goes on, “Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written, Be holy, because I am holy.” I’m just wondering. Is that possible for me? It seems I try and try, but I don’t meet the Maker’s mark. I know that I want to live a life of holiness, in order to understand and fit into the plan God has for my life. But the older I get, the more I discover how strenuous that is. Life, it seems, is an obstacle course. It requires spiritual, mental, and physical effort. I must work to prepare, to arm myself, for the duties and trials and conflicts of this life. He requires me to be sober, reflective, watchful, and active. I must ask for His protection against my pride, my self-will, my arrogance, my self-loathing…in other words, whatever weakens me in faithfulness. It’s a small path, and a narrow gate, that leads me to Him. He gives me hope, hope for holiness. I know that I am saved by grace through faith. But as I go, as I go through each day, I need the anchor of His word to stay the course. I'm writing a book. I don't think it's self-indulgent. I think the book has an important message. And, it's a dream come true for me. It's going well. I don't quite understand what comes next, but I am hopeful. But writing this book with Shilo has forced me to consider my selfless devotion, as well as my selfish desires. I want, more than anything else, to make sure that the reading of this text leads someone, anyone, to decide to be transformed by the renewing of his/her mind, as that is surely what Shilo’s story is all about. No matter what the world says, his story cannot be told separate or apart from the grace of God. So I’m just praying that sin doesn’t enter in too boldly or too sneaky either; that we each ask every day to be transformed so that what we say, what we write, is holy and pleasing to God. That it doesn’t turn out to be beautiful but poisonous. That it leads to new life, rebirth, holiness before God. Let this work be a living sacrifice, through us, holy and pleasing to God. Let it be an act of spiritual worship. Because long after the pages disappear, and long after we leave this earth, if we have pointed no one, no person, no family, no seeker or sinner to our God, then really, why did we bother?

Lucky Me

I have something to say about the friends in this photo. Their faces make me grin, and I remember a lot of meetings, conversations, emails, and texts that have crisscrossed the time and space that separates us. We share many commonalities, but perhaps the strand that connects us first is the fact that we are all librarians. Some people will read those words and think, okay, so they all love books, so they know how to do the Dewey, but so what? I have an idea that there’s a bond that is really quite profound between us. If you were to overlay our personalities in a 6-part Venn diagram, the place where we would all intersect is the place in our hearts that we reserve for children. Nothing and no one else can fill that space. It is what drew us to one another, and it is what makes our friendships with one another thrive and grow. The diagram reveals another intersection as well…it is our ability to picture a special future for the children in our midst. We believe in who they are, as well as who they could be. We get to practice becoming the people we are called to be…and we get to stimulate that practice in the children around us. Empowering children makes us feel powerful, and grateful. We have a knowing between us. We choose to work with young people. We know that the children we reach have as much to teach us as we have to share with them. The school bell rings, and most folks think our students are marching through the door to learn reading, writing and arithmetic. But we see the bigger picture. We know what they’re really going to learn from us. Through our example, we attempt to teach them how to love. We can each accept that all children need this, but there is no age when those children stop needing it from us. We love in order to live well ourselves. Children who are loved well succeed at anything and everything. I think we have a kind of envy for our young friends. Their slates are much cleaner than ours, and it seems easier to erase the mistakes. They are quick to forgive. Charles Dickens said something about what a blessing it is to realize that children, so fresh from God, love us. The slights and griefs, doubts and fears, angers and anxieties we carry with us in adulthood help to diminish and minimize the child within. Yet we understand that inside each one of us is a younger version of ourselves. Do we have the same souls at 54, 38, 57, 31 that we had as children of 8, 9, 10? I believe we do…but I believe that working with children allows us to become more illumined and enlightened about that inner being. I feel lucky to be in the picture with these library girls. I look to my right and left, and I’m trying to imagine how I got so lucky to be friends with each one of these remarkable women. Which led me to contemplating the idea of luck. I wondered if I searched the Word of God if I would find that He uses that word. Sometimes I’ll glibly state that I don’t believe in luck, but it’s in my vocabulary, and perhaps I better understand the word a little better before I discount its meaning or existence. I looked for synonyms—fortune, favor, happenstance. I found something quite illuminating. Is there such a thing as luck? Is it luck that puts us together, or is it Providence? I found what I needed, along with many examples from history, in God’s word. But the bottom line is this: “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.” Prov. 16:33 Luck seems like random favor or fortune, or the lack thereof. It can be randomly good or bad. Luck reeks of hopelessness in my mind. Luck relinquishes us of any responsibility. The current secular vernacular that is all around us calls god “the universe”. I hear people say that “the universe” will bring them good luck or bad luck, this or that. Really? Many folks in the world around me believe in a lower case god. That’s fine. But make mine upper case. It’s another thing I have in common with my library girls. We spell God with a capital G. Our undergirding is belief. We may describe our denominations differently, but we have a common denominator. Faith. Our relationships with Him are different; we’re at different points in our journey. That’s half the fun. We weren’t thrown together by luck; we were brought together by design. I like knowing that. The picture was taken after we presented to several hundred fellow librarians at our annual conference, TLA. We’d all prepared well for the day; we had a lot of ideas we wanted to share with our colleagues from around the state. There was no arrogance in our midst; we all felt a little intimidated by the idea that we were sharing with a lot of experts in the room. But we got through it. So when I look at our silly moustaches, I see our collective sigh of relief. I feel gratitude to God for bringing us together, and I say a prayer of thanksgiving. Am I lucky? Maybe. My Alpha and Omega provides me with all the “luck” I could ever want or need. He gives me unmerited favor. Screw luck. He gives me grace.