into the trenches of wars that aren't ours

I wanted to give you all something lovely and encouraging for Thanksgiving but time and again, the words were not there.  In their place swirled a thousand thoughts, a relentless barrage of melancholy. I could not shake it so I will share it.

Countless times I've heard people say, "It looks like you have it all together." "It looks like you can handle it by yourself." "It looks like you don't need any help." "You are where I want to be." You need to know that it looks that way because my smile is set when you peer through the window of my life for a brief moment.  You don't see the suffering because I carry it inside.  I have all the patience in the world with my flailing, sprinting, climbing children because I have lost it enough times to feel guilty and had to reason out the appropriate punishment and the times when I have to concede to their youthful vigor.

I am reminded that I have seen worse, but I am not without my breakdowns. I have cried for so long that there were only tearless, breathless sobs left, that my eyes were all but swollen shut and had a vicious headache from the racking emotional trauma.  I have watched the people I love most whither away.  You do not see the inner toil of every day because I do not broadcast it on social networks or rush to tell when people ask how I am. Mostly, people don't care anyway and even if they do, a brief hug and a little chat doesn't fill the emotional pantry when you've been starving all your life.  My biggest turmoils now are for those who are where I was or those whose souls are so far lost I don't know how to begin to speak to them about God.

Most people don't actually want to "touch" the problems of others. They want to offer an encouraging word, some scripture, and get on with their day feeling thankful that they don't have those problems or superior that they don't make such stupid choices.  This reality is my nemesis.  We are supposed to cover one another, to stand between them and their attacker, whatever that may be. To do so means to put yourself in harm's way. It means you willingly give up your comfort for theirs, even if they don't deserve it.  Your heart is broken because theirs is.  All too often we smile and hug and say, "If there's anything I can do...." and then wait for the person in need to ask for something tangible. 

If you really know what it is to need, you know that isn't how it goes.  We have to get to know people and then surprise them.  Discover their troubles like Shurlock Holmes (because they won't tell you) and then toss off our warm blankets, give up our full bellies, miss the events we wanted to go to, and dive into the trenches of wars that aren't ours.  We have to suffer our secure hearts to hurt with those that hurt and guess what, it bloody well hurts - a lot. 

Mostly, it hurts because even in your suffering with them, you can't fix it.  You can't take their addiction or make them feel worth something. You can't promise them health or financial ease.  You can't piece together a broken marriage, a broken person, a shattered hope.  You can't guarantee the people will ever change. You can't throw material things at what most often turns out to be an emotional hole and hope to fill it in. All the hugs in the world won't bring back someones baby or rewrite someones horrid childhood or amend the scars of someones misdeeds.

A meal, a smile, a friendly talk, clothes, cars, toys, a ride to the store won't fix the major problems but we need to give all that and, most importantly, we need to give it consistently.  Ultimately, the problem is loneliness.  Our consistency tells someone we really do care, every time, not just when it's convenient for us. We are willing to wrestle internally with our own opinions and offer love and encouragement instead of stern advice and self-righteousness. The reality is only God can heal their suffering, and we need to be there to remind people, even when we doubt that sometimes. 

We wonder why such a powerful, loving Creator allows things to happen.  We cry, we scream, we rant, we feel depressed and then we must remind ourselves that our emotions are lying to us.  The truth of the Bible says that He is always with us, always loves us.  He is the only one who knows our beauty the way we want the world to appreciate us, after all we are wonderfully and fearfully made, each of us, by His hands. He hurts as much, even more, than we hurt when we are falling to pieces.  He knows us and our needs even better than we do and he doesn't give us more than we can handle, even when we are eye-swollen, chest-crushed downtrodden.

So why doesn't He just fix it?  I don't know. I wail out the same question time and again.  I rant and rave at Him when I am mad at being broken because He knows I am and there's no use hiding it. I know full well that the deficiency is in me and not my perfect Creator. All I know is He knows what we need to accomplish His purposes in our lives. The rub comes when we'd rather our purposes prevail. 

We'd rather stuff our face with popcorn and sit at home watching a movie as soon as we get off work than take the risk of letting the girl who just missed the bus into our car, near our purse, with our kids. We refuse to forgo the few moments of peace we planned for ourselves that day to take her to her drug dealer's house (because that's where she was going anyway) and impart a few words of hope, of truth, a lack of judgement and scorn along the way.  She may have clothing on, a healthy physique, and a pocket full of money (intended to provide the only escape for a tortuous internal struggle that is her only reliable companion rather than her electric bill) but her need is greater than ours and we can take a few minutes to offer, without pressure or disdain, a greater hope.  We can offer her our heart broken for her trouble.

In the end, I still have problems. I still feel lost, alone, burned alive in anger, and have breakdowns but in retrospect they are nothing compared to what I've known, which is why I seem to have it all together.  Besides, I have a true companion, though I need to be reminded sometimes.  My true struggle is how to know where to help, how to offer someone the stability I have, how to ensure my life is not pointless, how to make them see the one true God has given them a comforter, a counselor, a hope that can succeed even when everything else falls apart, a hope that returns when you've lost it all and this is a problem that never goes away and never stops hurting.

Successful a thousand times a day

Most of the moms I know strive to be superwoman: to cook, clean, raise the kids, smile, make some money, be crafty, smile, make friends with everyone, help others, please our husbands, and day after day plaster on that infallible- uncrackable- strain the corners of your mouth till it hurts smile. I want to say to you as well as myself the one thing we fear to hear the most, the one thing we feel we could never willingly do: give up. 

I don't mean get in the car and drive away or sit on the couch all day until your man comes home and wonders why the lights are off and the kids have painted the walls with toothpaste and eaten poptarts that were obviously thrown over the baby gates into their rooms.  I mean stop pretending.  When someone asks you how you are, stop saying "fine" when you feel like you'd like to tear your hair out and scream profanity at everyone you know until they think you may be possessed and either call the pastor or have you committed.  Every now and then I say, "I'm  not answering that question today" and yes, people give me weird looks. So. 

Some people don't want to hear that I was just shaking with rage and may have been screaming like a banshee five minutes ago because my daughter poured coffee on my keyboard and destroyed what few moments of escape the Internet was expected to provide that day. "Frustrated" will suffice.  You see, when we pretend to have it all together, other mothers who are losing their minds feel like they have to pretend as well because why would they want to seem like the only one on the road to insanity.

I'm not encouraging pessimism. I have to remind myself of all the good in life on a minute by minute basis sometimes to remain collected. We all do.  But we need to open up and be real.  Yes, it may let some people in that we would rather not have peering over the edges of our fortifications into the delicate ticking of our hearts but it may also deter some who think it's horribly disgusting to let your three year old eat that gummy bear that's been unknowingly living for months beneath the couch.  Let's be honest.  Their kid is probably sick a lot because their immune systems don't get to play "Conquer this substance" on a regular basis and you'd rather not have the worry fanatic as your friend or their child's constant stomach virus playng on your kids' toys.  Don't misunderstand. We all know that if there's something growing on it, or hair, or the couch was really at the doctor's office you should probably take the candy. But who doesn't benefit from a good mouthful of dirt now and then? And who needs everyone to be their friend?

That seems cold? Mean? Rude? No. Real. The people meant to be in your life will be there even when you tick them off sometimes.  Trust that the lessons meant to be shared between you and another for betterment, despite the fact that your living styles are as opposites as oil and water, will be transferred more easily if you are who you are.  If you LIKE cleaning all the time and are scared to death of germs, good for you.  I am not. Good for me! You probably know the fastest way to get mildew scum from under the suction cups of the bath mat and I could REALLY use that tip.  I, in turn have the healthiest kids on the planet so you're safe inviting them to your sanitized house.

We are going to keep trying to be superwomen because, listen closely, WE ARE SUPERWOMEN even when we feed the kids cereal for dinner and expect a cup of coffee to work for our breakfast and lunch.  Don't worry you'll eventually get back on track.  I mean, soon the lack of nutrition will make you pass out (almost been there) and you'll actually have to eat more than a few bites of the kids' PB&J's while you wipe their fingerprints off the wall. 

Some poor woman out there needs to know that the only reason you get there early and your kids are clean is because you fed them in diapers and strapped them in the car seat to keep them in one place while you bathed them with wipes, then put their clothes on five seconds before she walked up.  Plus you'd been driving around the block for ten minutes because you couldn't stand to stay in a house that had so much work taunting you with lies about your imperfections.  We are successful a thousand times a day and to be that we have to let a handful of expectations go.  Now we need to stop letting those "failures" trick us into thinking we are not fanTASTIC. 

The things we miss are not failures at all, they are the less important stuff disregarded to chase grasshoppers and hear our babies laugh.  I am pushy sometimes.  Some people need a push and I can be your go to.  Some days I need a meek friend to influence me to shut up, take a breath, and really SEE the afternoon.  Now and then I need a person I don't like very much to make a valid observation so I can be MORE of a superwoman later in life, or a friend to do the same.  Sometimes I even need to feel a little down so I can hear those I love tell me things they may never otherwise reveal.  Everything builds us and life is full of beautiful things, ugly moments, profanity, personal triumph, aggrevation, impatience, love, snot, embarrasment, and hilarity.  In case you don't already know this, God loves you in all of it and so do most of the people you hold dear. Don't be afraid to color the world with you.

Dutiful

I keep the warm in with tattered cuffs,
and a zipper that once knitted the teeth of a wind breaker.
I am an eyesore among blazers and self important suit coats,
Begrudgingly sobering amid fairy wings clutching after daydreams.
World worn, I gather firewood and drape the aching bones.
Beloved of broken hands, sweat starched and faded,
I am the everyday.

The sun not scorch them

I can remember adults laughing and encouraging children to scream profanity at one another and "fight back". It was so ingrained in us that by the time we were teens it was a kill or be killed environment in our homes, at school, even in our friendships.  I was a master at keeping everyone at arms length while finding their cracks so if ever the need arose, I could take them apart subtly, over time, with well placed, poison laced, barbs of humiliation aimed at their most personal, deeply hidden, insecurities.

I was a master at subterfuge but now I am changed, a God kind of changed, and had I even bothered to remember the names of all my conquests I would scarcely be able to make up for the level of emotional torture I caused in my sick quest for power and self importance.  I am, frankly, aghast at the person I once was.  God has changed me so much that it seems I only read about that villain in a twisted novel in which evil was written the leading role.

Today, I marveled at the fact that at a year and two months old my daughter can hug me and say "I love you". That she tells people "thank you" and my son is the most beautiful little man I've ever known, when he isn't hitting his sister.  As my husband was tying up the trash bag, I bent down and picked up an empty bottle that had fallen and added it to the collection before the knot was finalized. 'Riah said "Thank you, Mommy." and I asked , "What?".  He said, "You helped Daddy".

For a moment I was dumbstruck at the implications of his expression of gratitude.  He was appreciating my kindness for someone other than himself?! at nearly 3?! I am overcome by thankfulness for the love in my life.  God has changed me so efficiently that I am writing on these blank little slates He's given me and they, in turn, will show the world a love that my universe never knew growing up.

Just before bed I asked 'Riah, "Who made us?", thinking he would be baffled at the question but wasting no time he responded, "God".  And here, between God, Cornerstone Family Church, and us at home is where my prayers are answered because David was a man after God's heart but many of his children fell away. The cry of my soul is that my life would be such an example and that God would see fit to put such a helping of His spirit in my babies that for generations my lineage would sing high the praises of the most high, that long after I am dust and gone even from memory my heritage know His love. I don't want to be famous or publish a testament to my own literary skill. I don't need fifteen minutes on TV or any personal luxury or glory. 

Every fiber of my being aches to be an example of selfLESSness and love and to plant seeds that will bear fruit delectable to my Maker long after my name is not even a whisper on this earth.  Today some of those seeds pushed up out of the ground and unfurled their tiny little leaves and I pray the sun not scorch them, teenage years not trample them, and I never tire of feeding them good example even when I am so tired I'd rather close the door and take a bath instead of teach my tantrum throwing kids how to be kind to each other with long suffering persistence.

To wear a life that fits

I finally feel comfortable in my own skin.  I was going to post this as a Facebook status but then, after pondering my disappointment at the lack of commitment the "like" button provides or friends' attempts at one liner empathy when they really had no clue what I was talking about, I decided that this statement held far too much gravity to be so blithely presented to the world. It's like the way we sometimes turn being born again into a Christian catch phrase that demands people jump on board even when they're on the fence because we've made them too ashamed to admit they really don't know.

I used to burn inside like my skin was a prison and I was meant to pierce a hole in it so the real me could fly out freely, invisibly, into the air.  Like I was meant for more than disease and rotting flesh or the restrictions of femininity, age, intelligence or any other social boundary. Spiritually this was oh, so true but there, in that time, it came out wrong in translation. I felt tied to the pavement like a helium balloon tugging to be freed and doomed to lunge against my string until the day I would run out of strength, wrinkle, and sink.

I didn't know Christ. I heard God speak to me, urging me to seek His truth.  But I felt I was abandoning "good" people to an eternity of suffering. I was their executioner and by believing in Jesus I was throwing the lever, dropping the floor out of the gallows. Even then, while half of me wanted to deny Him and all of me was running, I wanted to be like Him.  I wanted to offer myself as the bridge, sacrifice my eternity for all of theirs but I didn't want to pledge allegiance to a God who would let them burn.

So in my teenage lusts I lost myself.  I made up my own system of right and wrong and dove headlong into driving passions. I lived the street life, not to its extreme but close enough to cast my lot.  I was set on fire inside, voracious, ever eating, never full. I was a pack animal and I fought my way to the front. 

I have always been victorious on the paths I chose.  Inside me lives a warrior who rarely tires.  I'm the kind of fighter who will drag themselves up, down in the fourth round and bleeding freely, and fight like life itself was the prize.

These days my skin fits like it was made for me because God put me in my true purpose.  Now I fight for a reason. The fate of other people isn't up to me.  I am a light. I am a leader. I was meant for this life.  It is the only one like it that I have. There is a mission to be fulfilled before eternity in this form. I am called and I will not wish it away. 

I do not long after the rapture because it will come in God's time and I will be there.  Were it to come now, there are those that would not stand and they are meant to be among us. So I will fight for them because God himself has called us to tug the arms of our brothers and sisters as they follow a tantalizing but deceitful scent. Some will jerk free and go their way, like I did for a time.  Many will try to tug you along, but a few will wake, as though from a haze, blink the past out of their eyes and run with us.

Some days I am still afraid for others. Every day I want to jump in and take their place. I see their cages and watch them try to scratch free of their skin and I wish they could know how it feels to wear a life that fits.

The screaming of our wrath

Often we hide away our emotions, our fears, the evils that live within, as though to pretend they aren't there means they really aren't.  I've decided to stop this practice of self deceit.  It's not that I will offer up the darkest parts of my inner being to the world because any public figure who shows even one kernel of flawed humanity falls victim of judgement and persecution in the public eye.  While I am not, and may likely never be, a tabloid sensation, acquaintances, which outweigh friends by 100 to 1, will hover their magnifying glass over these things alone.

The truth does set you free and we must shine a light in the shadows to chase our own bogeymen away.  It stands to reason that the more we shove them down inside, the more we invite them to fester, to become harbored secrets, shameful burdens.  In all reality we try to hide them from God Himself who is a discerner of hearts the way Eve tried to hide her nakedness, which was there beneath the leaves despite her best efforts.

So now, because I most want to be rid of my hidden vices, I must yank the covers away.  I must stand before the face of God, and those I know will not harbor my flaws against me, however heinous, and reveal the dirt in the corners.  Sometimes it is as simple as saying, as I go about the day, God I am angry with you for letting this, whatever this may be, happen.  I am doubtful. I am selfish. I harbor evil imaginings.  I expect too much of myself and too little of you.  Sometimes it is as hard as admitting that you stole an employee's crackers from the top of the fridge in the breakroom weeks after they relentlessly blamed it on someone else, but only within your hearing.  Every now and then, admission comes with heavier consequences, jail time, losing someone important, ridicule or a tarnished reputation.

God is a gentle father, a loving listener.  He sees when we hide the vegetables under the table and pretend to have eaten them.  He knows when we hate someone and feign friendship.  He hears the cries of His broken children and those of their enemies. God hears the screaming of our wrath, the desires of malice.  We pretend but He knows what we are too afraid of ourselves to admit. 

We fear changing some one's perception and so step out with a smile of such dazzling whiteness we intend to blind others to our blacker bits.  In all reality, we make ourselves a prisoner to our shame.  One by one we have the power to step out of the locks, the bars, our cage.  Admit it, if only to the One who loves you above all else, or the earthly equivalent of that.  Confess and fly free.

Poor is a dirty word

When I was growing up, my parents always got hung up on money.  I remember not being able to afford anything and the FACT that this somehow made us lesser, like we had to hide in the shadows.  Truthfully, we weren't poor.  Our guardians liked to have "fun" and not the Cleaver family kind, more like the Fear and Loathing version.  Once I snorted a pixy stick up my nose and the only reason I can conjure for such painful behavior is example. I mean, surely powder is powder, right?

The point is, I remember being ashamed when the teacher sent the class out to get soda from the machine and I was the only one who stayed in their seat.  Every now and then she even felt sorry enough to spot me the money.  Jealousy was taught like some people ingrain manners.  I still struggle with it.

I don't want my kids to come up with this kind of growth ring.  I try to do fun things like go to the park but all I can think is that I'd like to take them to the pool which, of course, costs a little more than I have to spare.  I try not to let them hear my worries or mold them into my envy but sometimes my frustration shows through and I am harsher with them than need be for no reason that they know.

Then, there is guilt because marks are left in their minds.  Mommy is too often out of sorts, too often inside in pajamas.  Somehow, I have not broken the worthlessness in being broke.  Once, I took this spiritual giftings quiz and poverty was number one but it feels more curse-like at times. 

I quit a good job to raise my kids but there is more at stake if I fail now.  Their habits, health, education, spiritual leanings are all on my shoulders and every time I pay for groceries with food stamps I can hear all the ultraconservatives chiding me for my decision to leave a government gig.  I mean, even when I was talking about having kids, all anybody would say about the number we were shooting for was, "if you have the money". We don't. 

The most haunting thing is I think I may be teaching my kids that poor is a dirty word.  I may be showing them that it's acceptable to lose your temper or plummet into depression if you don't have the money you'd like.  I am definitely doing my husband a disservice by pushing him too hard, by demanding more than he can provide.

I try to think of third world mothers with dirt floors and one meal a day.  I envision muddy creek banks used for bathing and washing or war torn fear of missile sirens.  I try to remember all the women who say their only regret was not quiting work for their kids.  But right now all I can cling to is the fact that my babies are still babies and no irreparable damage has been done, yet.  There's still time for me to change and with God's help and the willpower He put in me, I can stop sowing these seeds in my family.