The Parable of the Talents

     I am going to assume that people reading this know the parable of the talents.  If not, those of you who do just skip this paragraph.  God gave a certain amount of talents (money) to three men.  Two of the men took the money and made more and one of them took the money and buried it.  Then God met with each of the men and he was pleased with the men who took the money and made more and displeased with the one who didn't and gave his money to the man who had the most money. 
     I always thought this story was mean growing up, but I knew deep down God wasn't mean, so I just avoided thinking about the story at all.  I guess if I were asked, I would say it meant that God gave us each gifts and we should use them for him and if we do not use them for him then we have wasted what God gave us and God doesn't like that.  But today for the first time I thought about it from the viewpoint of the servant who buried his money.  Why did he bury it?  The answer was so easy for me.  Fear.  This parable is about fear.  The servant wasn't lazy.  He was just scared.      This really opened my eyes.
    It was not about the performance of the servants at all.  How often do we read a parable and name the heart of it?  I know the reason I do not use my gifts when I know I should is because of fear. 
     I heard this girl sing one time at church and her voice was just beautiful.  Really, in terms of pleasing to the ear, probably no other singer could match it, but that was not what was so impressive about her.  What was most impressive was how she sang.  You felt closer to God through her singing.  I got a chance to talk to her afterward and I told her how beautiful her voice was and you know what she said?  "For me, there is no other reason to sing."  I am humbled to dust as I recount this to you.  I am sure she had fear at some point, but the joy of raising her voice to God was just too great.  This is how fear gets swallowed up.

      I used to sing.  I sang in many places for many people, but I never do now.  Do you know why?  Because I was always full of fear.  I was always so fearful I was going to mess up or that people would not like me or that people were just pretending to like me all along.  Fear overshadowed any ounce of joy I could have had.  And fear still does.  I can hardly sing when I am alone.  God wasn't mad at the servant who buried his talent, God hates fear and what it does to us.   You fill in the blank now.  Big or small does not exist.
      "For me there is no other reason to bake, to draw, to write, to paint, to speak, to mentor, to sew, to fix, to construct, to guide, to teach, to encourage, to compose, to play an instrument, to dance....to live"
    God wants us never to fear our gifts he has so preciously bestowed upon us.  So just take one gift, even the smallest (Luckily God doesn't see small), and use it for Him.

Sit in the Emotion

     Yesterday I had an argument with my husband and he said something hurtful.  I am sure no one can relate to this, but indulge me anyway....
     As I sat on the couch with him and the kids I noticed my chest feeling tight and my mind was racing and my legs were restless so I was rubbing my feet together furioulsy.  These things happen to us and we hardly ever stop and try to see ourselves from an objective/hovering viewpoint.    I was thinking about what he said and what I wish I had the guts to say...also trying to figure out what he meant when he said it then on to theories and conclusions I must draw from all of this.  My thoughts just kept swirling and my anxiety kept heightening, and then suddenly I did not want to feel this anymore.  I wanted it to stop, but I did not know how to make it stop. Then something happened.
      I was looking down at myself from somewhere else or may be it was the holy spirit but I distinctly heard, "Your feelings are hurt.  Just sit with that."  And everything just stopped.  The tightness in my chest loosened, my legs relaxed and my mind stopped.  Then I allowed myself to just feel the hurt and nothing more. 
     How do we stop ourselves?  Do we sometimes need to take a bird's eye view?  Or maybe not that far, just the ceiling's?  As I recall this, I remember looking down at myself and peeking into my busy brain.  I do not know if some people have the ability to do this.  I don't know if the reason I did this is because I listen to Theologians and Psychologists and apologetics almost daily. 
        I know when I have asked friends who confide in me, when they started having anxiety issues or depressive issues, they hurriedly respond with, "I don't know."  Well knowing requires thought. 
     If there is a question that challenges me and makes me uncomfortable but has the potential to help me, then you better believe I will answer it no matter how much thinking I have to do. 
     So next time you feel anxiety, go to the exact source--the comment, the action, whatever it was--name the emotion then just feel the emotion.  Do not try to analyze why you feel it or why the person did what they did or did not do, just feel the emotion.  And your thoughts will wander and you just have to reign them back in.  To know if you are the type of person who can do this, is to ask yourself this.  When something you thought to be true is challenged in an unmistakable way, what do you do?  Do you embrace the new found knowledge or do you turn your head and hold tight to your own perception?  Let me give you an example....
     I was watching this documentary one time about wild mustangs and how they were being captured and put in to pins and I was just appalled!  Why don't they just leave them alone??  They are so beautiful and they aren't hurting anyone!  Well I Finished the documentary and it turned out that there were so many that they were causing all kinds of problems with people and with each other as animals.  That is a ridiculous oversimplification but my point in this narrative is not to discuss wild mustangs, it is to illustrate that I was wrong.  I formulated a viewpoint based on limited facts.  This is so extremely prevalent in our society.  And this hurts our personal lives as well.  We must be willing to examine all facts even with sensitive subjects about society and about ourselves and when we don't the effects are devastating and when we do, the benefits are astounding.  We fear the emotion of hurt or we just overlook it too often.  Hurt is a big deal.  We are such vulnerable fragile creatures.  That is why anger and hate is so prevalent.  No one wants to be fragile.  So next time anxiety is overwhelming you due to an incident just stop and accept and feel...

Anxiety Finally Defined

     I know there is nothing new under the sun.  And this is nothing new.  But why is it that something you have known for so long can suddenly unlock something hidden in plain sight??  I realize I am going to have to explain what I mean, and I can.  Perfectly.    Finally.
     I was listening to a podcast, and a wife was asking this psychologist how to stop obsessing over her insecurities in her marriage.  The psychologist asked a series of questions then basically told her she had an anxiety disorder.  She said most people have passing thoughts of insecurity, even in a healthy marriage.  Of course, if you are not in a healthy marriage, you cannot expect to defy insecure thoughts.  But she said that the wife's problem was that she lets the thoughts make a nest.  And that is not normal.
     I kept thinking about what the psychologist said.  Now let me tell you about my present situation which is why I am blogging at 11:36pm.  I am very very tired physically, but I cannot sleep.  I am thinking about two things that I cannot fix right now.  This is going to sound really dumb for a minute, but wait for me to make a circle. 
     When I got my youngest out of his car seat today the sun was shining right on the inside of his ear canal and it was waxy!  Ugh!  Well, from getting him in the house and unloading dog food and saying bye to my husband who was leaving for work, the wax stayed nice and tucked away.  Well then as the evening progressed, I decided to let my kids stay up kind of late and watch a movie with me.  The intention was to clean up the house and the kitchen after they went to bed, but as I got more and more tired I settled within myself that dishes and laundry would be enough before bed, but then it was not to be.  Laundry got done but not dishes.  Not one dish.  Because I was too tired!!  Did I say that already??  And now I cannot sleep because my mind is in constant rapid fire mode from one mental picture of ear wax to dirty kitchen, ear wax to dirty kitchen.  Probably over a thousand times.  Not exaggerating. 
     And it is so odd that the flashing pictures and the effect it was having on my demeanor was not connecting until it did connect.  Then I remembered the call about the thoughts making a nest.  Now do not misinterpret me at this point and think that I am an OCD neat freak.  That is not the case.  The  predicament is the drive is there to fix but the ability is not. 
     Then that brought my marriage and my anxiety about it into full view.  I saw my prison cell from the outside for the first time.  When there is a problem in my marriage and I cannot fix it due to distance or a lack of willingness from my partner, I cannot get past it.  The same things that have never been fixed are as painful and real to me as they were years ago, and I have always wondered why?  Why can I not just accept it?   Why does my mind create this never dissipating cyclone?
      I am very consistent with this.  If it is something I am incapable of fixing there is going to be a nest.  And it is not a chickadee nest. It is an Eagle's nest.
      Now think about you.  Is this you?  It would be good to know right?  Because if you want help and you can verbalize exactly what your problem is with complete clarity, then help will be concise.  If you go to a mechanic and say "My breaks do not work" then the mechanic knows exactly what to do.  If you instead say, "there is something wrong and I do not know what it is," the mechanic will have to go into it blindly.   But this is more than breaks, this is break pads.  You know the problem is the breaks AND what is wrong with the breaks! 
     So this translates, "I have anxiety.  And the anxiety is from not being capable of fixing things beyond my control in my life, from little things to big things." 
     I really hope this helps someone.  I feel like when I do get help, I can verbalize exactly what I need.  And I encourage anyone reading to keep thinking, keep reading, keep listening.  Doors will unlock.  It just takes two things.  Seeking answers and time.  Well maybe three.  We will never receive as many answers as we could if we stay locked up.  Sometimes we have to open up and take a chance with other people.  You never know who will say something that will blow your mind wide open, and then subsequently, keep you up all night thinking!!!

In Transition

        I was talking to a cousin this past Thanksgiving....she is twenty years old and already realizing that life is not what she thought it was going to be....boy is that ever true!!  Life has been pretty much one starting over point after another for me....and I feel kind of robbed.

       I am not sure whether it is just life to feel unprepared or if you actually can be prepared.  I don't feel I was prepared at all for life, and I am not sure why.  I cannot perceive anyone else's thoughts, only my own here.  I don't know what makes one person more prepared than another.  But I do know that I want my children to be more prepared than  I was.  But how do I do that if I am still learning and still in transition? 

      Maybe God brings us through a period of transition naturally every so often and we are forced to rethink everything we believe.  It can be a painful process.  Transition can bring truths out that you have not seen before.  Maybe your family is not who you thought they were, maybe having children is not as fulfilling as you thought it would be, maybe marriage is not the relationship you had hoped for...or marriage in general is not what you thought it was at all.  In fact, in some of these scenarios, it was quite the opposite of what you expected entirely.  Then begins the learning process, right? What you do after you come to realize that life isn't what you thought it was going to be is very, very important.

        Some people get depressed and start drifting away.  They drift away from life, from beliefs, from family and from friends and from everything they once knew and away from what they enjoyed in life.  Life becomes rather pointless and too complicated to solve.  How can the next step be taken when there is nothing in front of or behind you?  That was me.  Life can do that to you.  I look back at all the things i have been through that I did not expect, and I honestly cannot believe I made it this far.

         In college, I did not make the friends I thought I would make and I didn't get accepted into the club I wanted to be in, and it just seemed that every door I tried to open, just shut in my face.  I was filled with disappointment after disappointment.  Then I got into a relationship and fell in love with someone that did not believe the same things that i believed.  I held on to who I was for a little while, but who I was was becoming more and more vague.  I had always followed God and did my best to keep his teachings, but I was not deeply rooted in a relationship with him.  I was unaware of His deep love for me.

       My faith had always relied on my performance.  When I performed well, I felt good about who I was and I felt good about God and me.  When I performed poorly, I felt bad about who I was and I felt distant from God.  And then i committed the 'unforgivable sin' (in my book at that time).  I had premarital sex.

      I always knew in my heart that I would never do that until I was married, but I never considered what it would be like to fall in love with someone and be alone with them a lot.  And I did not consider that the person  I would fall in love with would not have the same views as  I did...nobody told me that if I tried to fight that battle in a relationship unequally yoked that I would fail.  I never knew that I could not fight that battle alone...and that it was NEVER meant to be fought alone.

      Many people have developed their own theories about the above situation.  And you have heard them all and I have heard them all.  'Don't be alone with your boyfriend or girlfriend, don't make out, don't go too far.'  And I have actually seen a complete diagram of each stage of physical touch!  And how far is too far???  I still do not know.  Is the Bible silent on this?  Is that the reason for the confusion?  I always thought it was crazy that I could never be alone with the man I would consider marrying...maybe it is crazy but maybe it isn't.  Let's face it, desire and passion is a part of life and a very beautiful part of life.  But culture has perverted every innocent desire and passion.  But God still created it.  His creation has not changed just because culture has.  The battle for purity was never meant to be fought alone.....THE BATTLE FOR PURITY WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE FOUGHT ALONE.

     I will tell  my children that they are absolutely capable of saving themselves for marriage as long as they are with someone who is striving for the same goal.  If my children fall in love with someone who is not rooted in a relationship with God, they will fail.  I will teach them that if they do commit this sin, that God still loves them but that God desires a learning process to occur.  I just want them to know that they are not meant to fight that battle alone.  There are many battles that must be fought alone, but not that one.  I wish I had known that.  I wish I had known how vulnerable I was and how fragile.

      I realize that not everyone has the same struggles...this is just an example, a very thorough one of going through a transition.  I used this particular example because it took nine years to have some peace about it and by peace, I mean I really feel like I have something to offer in the form of an answer.  I feel like I learned what I was supposed to learn.  And I can pass that on.  But this is certainly not the only transition I have learned from.  But college  is  a good example for me because I believe during that time I became keenly aware that life was  not going the way I thought it would, I was not handling things the way I thought I ought, and I wasn't turning into the person I thought I would be.

     Since I had defined my worth by my performance, what was left?  Looking back, I do not think God has ever  been trying to teach me how to not sin, but He was teaching me that once everyting was stripped away, that He still loved me.  I do not know if you can relate to this.  I hope this hasn't been a lesson on premarital sex for you, but of the importance of finding peace about the point in your life where things shifted and you felt like life was dragging you and you had no say in what happened next. 

     Has there been a point where life just crumbled?  I figure if it happened to me, it probably has happened to someone else.  And I truly hope what I have learned can be of some use to someone else.  After the transition of college, I started struggling with depression.  And I still struggle with it.  Turning points that involve pain in our lives such as the turning point in my life are what God uses to shatter some misconception we have of him and his love and the way he works  in our lives.  Turning points are unavoidable and necessary, but to make it through one and it not leave completely debilitated, you must be deeply rooted in God's love.

I know what Matthew 18:3 means

     Then he said, "I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven."
     I guess growing up I had some idea of what this meant.  I always assumed it was purity.  But children are not pure.  We all know that children lie, sneak, throw fits, scream, refuse to listen, make the same mistakes over and over.  Adults struggle with the same things.  Some of us have more self control than children, but there is one very marked difference between kids and adults and it is huge.  As adults we are terrible at this.  And children are almost masters of it and Jesus was too.  Forgiveness.
     The other day I was pretty much a monster.  My children were acting like children as usual.  Some days I handle the strife better than others.  But my husband has been gone for two weeks, and all the things they do that require me to intervene started sounding like a bomb going off in my ears every five seconds.  Patience was blown to bits.  My nerves were like metal on metal.  These days never make me feel good.  I understand why it happens, and I have more grace for myself than I used to, but I knew I needed to apologize. 
     So I went in their room and I said, "I am so sorry for how I have behaved today.  I know I have asked ya'll over and over again to forgive me for yelling.  I have prayed about this over and over and if God asked me for whatever I wanted I would tell him Patience without a blink!  And I know I will have to ask forgiveness again but I want you to know that I hate that I do it, and I love you so much."  And without hesitation, my child that gives me the most grief said "And we love you too" with the biggest smile on his face and his arms outstretched.  I am tearing up writing this just thinking about it.  Ahhhhhhh.....forgiveness.  This has got to be what that verse means.  I do not know if as adults we are so terrible at forgiving or if we are so terrible at apologizing.  Apologizing means we name what we have done, we make no excuse, we talk about how we have tried to remedy it, we talk about how we have failed after trying to remedy it and we say we are so sorry.  And we realize we can do nothing to get the response we want and we are at the mercy of the offended. 
     How many husbands do this when they have hurt their wives?  How many wives do this?
How many of us actually forgive or just try to forget instead?  Maybe God is trying to teach us something when we continue to struggle with things even though we long with all our heart to stop the thing and we have prayed about it over and over.  I get why it is hard not to yell.  I have four kids and there is always something to do, someone always wants something, they always need more time from me.  Even if I never yelled, I would feel guilty about how I do not have a special moment with each of them each day.  I run out of energy physically and emotionally.  But what about those things in our marriage that hurt us, that never get an apology, and that never stop?  Do you forgive something that is not asked for?  And if so, how?  How do you forgive something that someone does over and over that hurts you and they never acknowledge it and when you bring it up, they make you feel worse about it because they deny it and just refuse to see your pain.  I know what Christ says about forgiveness, but how does forgiveness have any meaning if it is handed out arbitrarily?  It doesn't.  Not to the perpetrator.  Jesus did not say to forgive people who hurt you and do not care about you because they deserve it but because you deserve it.  You deserve to be set free from other people hurting you that do not care.  Apply this to marriage.  The number one reason for divorce is money.  It is not money, it is the perpetual issue with money.  My husband does this one thing that hurts me and he does it over and over and when I confront him about it, he lies and says he does not do it.  It is not the thing he does that threatens our marriage, it his refusal to see and to stop it.  People grow weary of the burden of continual hurt.  Most of us, probably all of us can deal with the same issue a few times, but the issue that never stops and never gets resolved, now that is what destroys, and that is why God gave us forgiveness.  He made it and gave it to us.  I have no hope without it for my marriage.  I can actually experience some peace if i forgive.  If forgiving is a burden then it is not forgiveness.  Forgiveness is there to help me cope.  It is also there because people mess up all the time and we sin against God so we are expected to forgive because we ask God to forgive us.  But many of us ask for the forgiveness and we feel remorse.  This is different.  There is a difference in forgiveness when someone asks and feels remorse and tries to stop the thing they are doing and the forgiveness given when there is no remorse and no attempt to change.  The first kind is for the offender, the other is for the offended.  I do not profess to understand this or to have learned to do this or what all this means, but I imagine the day I learn how to forgive that perpetual offense will be the day I stop perpetually yelling at my kids....but more importantly, will understand what it means to get into the kingdom of God.

Tough Love

     As a parent, I fail in too many areas to count, but there is one thing I do understand and execute quite well and that is tough love.  I will henceforth explain.  My kids are not sheltered from reality and by that I mean the subjects that really matter.  For example, my 12 year old and nine year old have known what sex is since they were seven and that was probably too late.  Gasp!  I just thought I would start with the most terrifying subject to start with and navigate from there.  If you are like me and believe that our Lord created it and also that it has been exploited to the nth degree in our society, you would be hard pressed to convince me the conversation was unnecessary.  If they have not heard about it by second grade at school, they have seen some form of it on a phone or lovely x rated commercial or x rated picture that pops up when you are browsing netflix.  I just wanted to let them know what our perfect Lord had to say about it before they heard what the world has to say.  Also, when we talk to our kids about difficult subjects, we are saying, "I have faith that you can handle life."  This is a good thing to remember as a parent when any difficult subject that we feel wholly ill equipped to discuss is launched into our lives and subsequently directly into our laps. 
    On a different subject yet a completely connected one, my husband thinks it is cruel to tell my kids 'when you are 18 you are up and out!'  He is of the vast majority of opinion that kids should be able to live at home pretty much indefinitely.  What he doesn't realize, like majority of society is that saying 'you are entering the world on your own at 18' means 'I believe in you'.  Having our children fall back on us time and time again sends the message that they cannot handle life.  That is like every time your child messes up on their homework, you correcting it all for them before they hand it in and every time they fail, you forcing the teacher to let them do it again and again.  Not handing them their lives and expecting them to live them, is saying that failure teaches us absolutely nothing.  How many quotes have we heard about learning from our failures.  How many of the most successful people in the world have experienced failure and have discussed at length how failure influenced their success  more than their success?  We inhibit our children's failures constantly and we do it when they become adults as well.  We tell them to fail is ok then do everything humanly possible to prevent it.  We try to make everyone the same.  Everyone is a winner.  Everyone deserves a trophy.  Everyone deserves a second chance and a third chance.  Everyone deserves to be on the team no matter how they act or what their grades are.  Everyone deserves to go to college no matter their GPA.  What if preventing our children's failures is robbing them of their life?  What if preventing their failure is robbing them of all their potential?  If people learn more from their failures than their successes and they ultimately attribute their character and their accomplishments to what they learned from failure, then what are we doing?  What kind of damage are we causing?  What kind of success are we stifling?  Next time your kid forgets his homework, do not jump in your car and chase him down to give it to him before the bell rings, let him fail.  Have enough faith in him to let him fail..

And by the way, my children both talk about how excited they are to have their own apartment some day.  My oldest already has ideas on how to decorate and what job he will have to pay for it.  hmmmmm

Robot Marriage

       I was listening to a christian podcast yesterday, and they were discussing artificial intelligence.  I have been hearing a lot about this topic lately.  I am not super interested in this topic so I am just going to jump into the part that has been invading my thoughts pretty regularly.  These three guys on this Christian podcast were discussing how it will not be odd one day that someone marries their robot.  I do not think Christians like to think of these possibilities, but let us consider without reservation for a moment that this will happen.  Is this so hard to comprehend?  Is this not happening already?  There are video games that feature sex in first person simulation.  People have online relationships.  People access airbrushed pornography every single day by the millions.  This is not what disturbed me the most.
     I am sad to say that I believe that most marriages already assume the position of calloused robotics.  How many marriages are thriving on friendship and purpose and depth and compassion?  How many marriages are ripe with invigorating conversation of future growth and success as a couple and as parents?  How many married couples go to work every day and discuss and brainstorm about how to be more effective and prosperous for their company and for themselves?  Why is it that in every other endeavor in life, hard work and perseverance is expected and pursued except for marriage?  How can this be so foreign?  How many married couples read the Bible together or pray together?  How many couples have read one marriage book together-even one that isn't that good?  How many couples have gone to marriage conferences or marriage counseling?  Now ask yourself, how many married couples have attended conferences and read material for work?  How many books were read in college and in high school?  Now, if you think all this is unnecessary and silly when it comes to marriage, could someone remind me of the divorce/failure rate of marriage?  And let us apply this parenting too.  About the same amount of effort is put into marriage as is parenting.  Can someone look up the stats on drug use and pornography use with teens?  What if the stakes based on our self education were as high when it came to our jobs?  Do not answer that.  I know the answer.
     Not too long ago, I decided to sub at my children's school from time to time.  There is a new process for this venture and it is quite intense and complicated, but I did it because that is what I had to do.  It was completely silly and unnecessary yet I did it because I Wanted to sub a couple days week when my husband was off work.  I also went to nursing school for a year to learn how to hand people a pill and give them a shot, all of which someone can do at home for an ailing spouse.  Do not get me wrong, I do not despise my education, but Marriage effects our lives and our spirits.  It effects the people we vowed to love the most, our spouse and future children.  Is it not a bit convicting considering that one day people will be more interested in a robot spouse than a real one?  Is it not that way already?