Self-Love Is the Default, Folks

The Bible tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves. That's a pretty good sound bite. Jesus himself said that if you do that and love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind, that sums up the entire law in a nutshell. 

But there is nothing simple about loving our neighbor as ourselves. There is not even anything simple in understanding what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves.

I've heard this biblical command used over and over to teach that we need to learn to love ourselves more. How can we love our neighbor as ourselves if we don't love ourselves? Because, you know, we are SO filled with self-hate. We don't like who we are; we just don't accept ourselves for how we are made.

Good heavens. Satan must be particularly proud of himself for that one: turning the second greatest command of God into an invitation to indulge the most basic and greatest of all sins -- pride. Yep, that was pretty brilliant. And what suckers we are to fall for it.

I can't think of a single place in the Word where we are instructed to grow in love for ourselves, to try to love ourselves, or to love ourselves at all. Rather, we are constantly being told to die to ourselves, to put God and others above ourselves. In Jesus' command here, he assumes that we love ourselves from the start – which seems like a reasonable assumption to me, having observed myself and a good number of human beings for several years now. Our problem is never that we think of ourselves more lowly than we ought. Quite the contrary.

I've been reading and re-reading C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity during my nighttime devotions these days. (There's another brilliant one, C.S. Lewis. Not to compare him to Satan -- but yeah, brilliant.)  He talks about this self-love idea:

Do I think well of myself, think myself a nice chap? Well, I am afraid I sometimes do (and those are, no doubt, my worst moments) but that is not why I love myself. In fact it is the other way round: my self-love makes me think myself nice, but thinking myself nice is not why I love myself. . . . In my most clear-sighted moments not only do I not think myself a nice man, but I know that I am a very nasty one. I can look at some of the things I have done with horror and loathing.

So, the Self-Love contingency would say, "See? He can't like himself when he thinks he does horrible loathsome things. How could he?" But Lewis continues:

I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man's actions, but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner. For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life--namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things.

Part of this has to do with our definition of love. If you think love has to do with fondness or affection, you might have trouble loving loathsome people. But love is not a feeling; it is an action. Love is acting in another's best interests. (Which, Lewis notes, is easier to do when we are fond of the person, so it still behooves us to try to develop some fondness for folks . . . but it's not a requirement to obey the command.) Even when I hate the things I do, I still act in my own best interests.

And even when I hate the actions and behaviors of my neighbor, I can still act in their best interests. I can love them. I can even have some affection for most of them, if I give it some effort. 

This love command of Jesus' -- it really requires more attention than we give it.

Nature = Love

Here's more evidence that God loves us: nature is beautiful.

For those of you unaware, we've had a deluge of rain in Texas this year. Serious flooding about a month ago, in fact. But after many years of drought, rain is a glorious sight, too. Everything is so green and lovely.

I walk around the neighborhood with our dog and marvel at the beauty of the world God gave us. All the green. So many shades of green. Such a soothing color, green. Soft and gentle in the grasses of the lawn and the leaves on the trees and bushes.

And the contrast of the green leaves against the bright blue of the sky is remarkable. Somewhere in my very limited science fiction exposure, I read a novel about a world where the sky was pink or something. And of course, on every other planet, where there is no atmosphere, you only see dark space. I like the option given us.

 I have discovered in recent years that I have a particular affinity for texture. I prefer woven baskets to smooth flat boxes. And I love looking at the various uses of stone and brick in our neighborhood -- in the mailboxes, in the driveways, in planters and steps, even in the houses themselves.

And the sparkle of the flowers sprinkled here and there. Just in our front yard, we have lantana, esperanza, plumbago, and another purple flower that Charlie my plant-knowledgable neighbor can't identify for me. Plus the cactus is just about to bloom. Orange, yellow, red, and purple surprises accenting the soft greens and browns. Big and bold . . . or small and delicate . . .

In Texas (at least in our part of Texas, but I've heard it's a state-wide thing), there are wildflowers growing along all the roadways. The famous bluebonnets pop up to signal the start of spring here, but even now that they are gone, there are still flowers everywhere.

Walking around our neighborhood, I'm entranced by the sights . . . and sounds. Birds chirping. What a great idea that was! Again, such a calming thing to sit in our courtyard area and hear birds, twittering to each other, singing to the blue sky. Bright green lizards and fuzzy brown squirrels scamper up and down our maze of live oaks. Blue jays and other birds I'm not informed enough to pin a name to light on the edge of our stone fountain to get a drink or a quick shower.

And the fountain! Water! Water is an essential to our existence, but God didn't have to make it such a pleasing thing to the eye. Or the ear. The sound of water gurgling, or flowing, or crashing in waves . . . we record those sounds and listen to them in our urban apartments to drown out the car horns and sooth our troubled souls.

Again, God didn't have to make any of our environment beautiful. He was under no such obligation to us; life itself was his greatest gift, and He could have stopped there. We could live on a planet of empty vastness like the moon. We could live in broad deserts of nothingness (not that deserts don't have their own grandeur, but still). We have beauty, in various forms, all of which ease our souls and draw us to Him, if we let it.

Thanks, Lord. I'm gonna go take a walk now.

Forsaken

Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

There's a reason we read scriptures over and over. I've read these words of Christ on the cross probably hundreds of times in my life. I heard them. I've spoken them myself, butchering the Hebrew pronunciation, I'm sure. I've pondered the emotion behind them. I've considered the theological significance of them. I know these words.

But last night at church, they spoke to me again in a new way.

My God . . . my God . . . why . . . why have you forsaken me? Why did you call me here, to this place of horror, and then leave me alone? Why won't you come to me? Why?

The Bible has many troubling descriptions of hell -- fire and brimstone and such. But the one thing that is the heart of the nature of that Other Eternal Place is that it involves complete separation from God. And considering that God is the one and only source of all things good (love, beauty, compassion, peace, joy -- ALL THINGS GOOD . . . let the enormity of that sink in), there is nothing worse. Forget fire and brimstone; there is no hell greater than complete separation from all Goodness that exists.

We all have just a taste of that separation now, in life here on earth. Humanity chose, corporately, to live independent of God, and he obliged us to a certain extent. Because he loved us, though, he (like a good parent) left a door open and a light on for us to come back when we choose to do so.

Jesus on the cross, though. This was a different separation. This was more than the normal human ache of loneliness from the divine. He was bearing the burden of humanity's sin as he died, and the Father actually turned away. A complete separation. Jesus went through hell -- the separation from God, the true essence of hell -- while he hung on that cross. And he did it to open that door so that I would never have to experience that.

Were the whole realm of nature mine, 
That were a present far too small.
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul . . . my life . . . MY ALL.

Reality TV Christians

Apparently John Luke Robertson is engaged. And apparently he and his fiancee are staying abstinent until marriage.

My first reaction: I would never want to put myself in a position where I felt such information needed to be shared with the world. I have NO desire for fame.

My second reaction: it saddens me to no end that being abstinent until marriage is a big enough deal to be a news story.

Seriously.

A friend was telling me a while back that, at the church we attended together a couple moves ago, most of the young people we loved and respected have no qualms at all about living together and having sex before they get married. None at all. Christian young people. It's just no big deal.

I cannot tell you how sad that makes me.

I suppose I would expect that of unbelievers, but even in them, it makes me sad. It's one thing when you have an ideal in your head to save yourself for your wedding day, but you fail to live up to your ideal in the end. That's a sad thing, too. But it's quite another to go into your dating years without even having the mindset that saving yourself is a desirable thing worth the effort. Without feeling any sense of shame or guilt AT ALL about crossing a line that the God you claim to worship and submit to has clearly drawn for you. Clearly.

How in the world did we get here? How did the church manage to raise a generation who has so little regard for the word of their God?

Ugh. If I think about this too much, it really discourages me.

So back to John Luke. I haven't seen "Duck Dynasty" for a while -- my girls kind of got off of that kick. They're more interested in the Duggar crew these days and their various courtships, engagements, marriages, and baby-birthing.

I don't know what to think about the Duggars. If nothing else, they at least are putting some important topics out in the public eye to be discussed. Like modesty, healthy relationships, and such. And for the most part, they don't seem really pushy about things.

They just seem annoying. Are friends going to hate me for saying that? The Duggars annoy me. They're the kind of people that, if I knew them in real life, I would admire for some things but would avoid having to spend too much time with them because they just flat out turn me off.

Maybe they're different in real life -- maybe they would seem a little more genuine and natural than they do on TV. I can't imagine living your life in the public eye like they do: staging conversations and situations for the ever-present cameras (because yes, I have no doubt most of those are "staged", even if they are conversations and situations that would have happened for real without the cameras there).

For instance, when Jessa's boyfriend (I forget his name) approached Jim Bob to ask for permission to propose. They did this on camera. I don't believe for a moment that Jim Bob walked into that room without knowing that this discussion was going to happen. It was awkward; it was weird; it was a personal moment that did not need to be acted out for the world to watch. And it annoyed me that they did act it out for the world to watch.

I suppose I should be happy that there are confessing Christians out there living a Christian life in the public eye as a testimony. But I'm not sure that I am. I think I'd rather there were more confessing Christians living a good Christian life in their homes, neighborhoods, and workplaces for their friends to see as a testimony.

And dear friends, that would most definitely include saving yourself for marriage. Sigh.

Tell Me What Greatness Looks Like, Mom

My friend lost her father a week ago today. Her son is a student of mine, a classmate of my daughter's, so the family has been on my mind a lot this week.

I lost my father thirteen years ago -- my mother the year before that. Other friends who have lost a parent talk about thinking about them every day. I can't say I think about either of my parents every day. I never lived close enough to my parents for them to be an integral part of my daily life as an adult -- maybe that's why. I don't feel a hole in my daily life to prompt their memory. It's mainly on holidays that I miss them, or at other random times . . . like this morning.

My dad grew up on a farm in Kansas during the Dust Bowl years. Mom grew up in small-town Missouri, daughter of a high school principal and elementary school teacher. From what I understand (I had to piece these details together through relatives after they died), they met in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where my dad was stationed for some part of his military training during World War II and where my mother was teaching in a one-room schoolhouse (I think Cape Girardeau was where the one-room schoolhouse was . . . oh, I wish so much I had asked her about that experience!).

From that point, Dad left for officer training at Harvard (that's how a poor farm boy from Kansas ends up getting a Master's degree from Harvard), and the two of them continued what my mother called a romance of letters. They apparently wrote each other all through the war.

As you can guess, my sisters and I would give just about anything to see those letters.

This is hard for me to imagine. As I recall, they didn't have a whole lot of time together at Cape Girardeau. Maybe a year? And this was back in the day when people were a bit more cautious about their romance. My dad, in particular, would have been cautious, I think; he was always a very conservative one.

But maybe not in Cape Girardeau? They apparently fell for each other hard enough to maintain a long-distance relationship for a few years through nothing but words on paper (no email, no texting, not enough phone calls). And it flourished to the point that they got engaged soon after he returned from the Pacific.

How do you do something like that? My daughter and her long-term, long-distance boyfriend would probably like to know.

I remember asking my mother once what made her think my dad was good husband material. I mean, on the surface, someone from my mother's background might not see much in a farm boy from Western Kansas whose family of nine lived in a basement (she said when she first went to meet the family, they hadn't even built a house over the basement yet -- they literally all lived in just a basement). Her answer was, basically, that she saw greatness in him.

Wow.

I lost my parents too early. So much I should have asked them.

Here's My Heart

Oh, to grace, how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be.

I could force my children into moral behavior. Well, I could have to an extent, when they were younger . . . my oldest being eighteen now, everything is a little more complicated . . . but that's kind of extraneous to the point I want to make here, so we'll gloss over that for now and return to . . .

I could force my children into moral behavior. In fact, that's what parents do on some level when our children are young. Through various disciplinary techniques, we require our children to behave morally with the hopes that these behaviors, which are not natural to them, will become reinforced and habitual, and with the hopes that they will see the benefits of moral behavior and strive to continue in that vein.

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee.

In fact, it seems like the bulk of our parenting effort when our kids are young is expended toward shaping good, responsible kids -- probably because that task requires so much effort. Our natural bent toward sin makes this training a long-term job, one that doesn't ever get completed, one that our children (we hope) eventually take up to work on in themselves.

So much energy gets spent toward the goal of making our children good that it's sometimes easy to lose sight of the fact that this isn't our primary goal in parenting. At least it shouldn't be. At least it's not mine.

It's also not my primary goal that my children be happy. Not that I don't want them to be happy, but we all know that the happiness they desire from us today is temporary and destines them for misery later. The happiness we desire for them requires gruntwork today that is no fun.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love.

If I limit myself to the temporal goals I have for my children in this life (which I will for the purposes of this metaphor), one of my primary goals is for my children to have a relationship with me. A real relationship. Genuine, authentic relationship. Relationship appropriate to who we each are to each other -- not buddies, not business associates, but a mother and child. If I raise "happy," "good" children who don't have an authentic relationship with me, I have not really succeeded in my goal as a mother.

And it strikes me lately that I need to remember this about my heavenly Father as well. It is often easy to lose sight of the fact that His ultimate goal for me while I'm on this earth is not to make me a good, moral person (although He'd like that). Neither is it to make me happy in this life (although He wants that, too). Both of those goals pale in comparison to the ultimate, crucial need to establish a genuine, authentic relationship with me -- a relationship based in the reality of who we each are: father/child, master/servant, king/subject, creator/masterpiece, bridegroom/beloved bride. Goodness and happiness will all be taken care of some day; the relationship part has to be taken care of NOW.

I'm finding that when the ways of God don't make sense to me, it's usually because I've forgotten His ultimate goal. Not my morality or my levity, but my heart.

Here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above.

25 Years

When you're a month shy of 21, the idea of being married for 25 years is almost inconceivable. Well, maybe not inconceivable . . . but it sounds like a long, long time. Like a lifetime. Because it is, when you're a month shy of 21.

Once you hit that 25-year mark, it doesn't seem like it should have ever felt so inconceivable. It even feels like something you can aim for one more time. But it still seems like a long, long time. It's kind of hard, some days, to remember what it was like to not be married; it's so much a part of who I am.

Hubby and I have done SO MUCH in the past twenty-five years, it seems. Since we said “I do”, we've completed three college degrees between us, lived in eight different cities (five different states), and between the two of us, worked full-time jobs for seven different employers (not even counting the short-term work we did here and there).We had two children who are now nearly raised – and we even started the parenting thing relatively late in our marriage. We've been members of five different churches and regular short-term attenders at more. Hubby has played on innumerable softball and basketball teams. I've performed in innumerable music and drama productions. We have friends all over the country.

Wow. It's been a rich life.

It's been a hard life sometimes. Marriage is not easy. There were ugly times -- a lot of them. “Love will keep us together” is a lie. Hard work and sacrifice and sometimes pure stubbornness – and above all, the grace of God – is what keeps us together, because love (at least love as you know it when you're a month shy of 21) comes and goes. You need to love someone before you marry them, but I think you have to be married for a while before you learn how to Love someone, with a capital L, the Love that matters. 

And even then, there's no guarantee. Although I've known couples who loved intensely until the end, I've probably known more who have limped into their final years, hanging together just out of habit, or obligation, or convenience, or fear of the unknown. 

Lord, save us from that fate. Please. Teach us how to Love . . . with Your Love . . . until the very end.

Happy anniversary, honey. Here's to Loving forever and Loving well . . . until the very end.

The Octogenarian Newlywed

I don't know for sure how old my Uncle Jim is, but my dad (the eldest sibling) would have turned 91 yesterday, so Jim must be in his late 80s. And I just heard Uncle Jim is getting married.

Yeah, my jaw dropped, too. Except that he's my Uncle Jim, and he's just kinda like that.

He's been widowed twice before, so this is his third marriage. His bride (also in her 80s) was widowed three years ago, according to a news article about her that my sister told me about. She immediately decided to go back to college, printing up business cards to hand out to the students calling herself "Granny Franny". Someone even nominated her for Homecoming Queen. Sounds like the kind of lady my Uncle Jim would marry.

Still, it's hard for me to imagine getting married at that age. I mean, what exactly does marriage offer you at that age that you can't get just by being friends? I doubt they're marrying for the bedroom privileges (although, again, this is Uncle Jim . . . I can't quite bring myself to eliminate that possibility).

Is it terrible that I found myself wondering if there are financial advantages to tying the knot at that age? (Because it doesn't seem like there would be many . . . but then Lord knows I'm no money guru . . . )

Do they want someone to help take care of them as they age? That's possible, but they're both aging, so I don't know how reliable a help they'd be to each other. Plus Uncle Jim has been pretty darn independent his whole life; it's hard to imagine him needing to be taken care of. And Granny Franny doesn't sound like a fragile, needy little thing, either.

Honestly, why shouldn't somebody in their 80s want to get married? I assume they're getting married for the reasons people should get married: they love each other, and they want to build a life together, even if it's a relatively short one at this point. They're house-hunting in Topeka (house-hunting!), and my sister said he sounded VERY happy.

God bless them! I hope I have the energy to consider starting a new life path in my late 80s. I just hope I live to my late 80s.

Good Friday Meditations, Courtesy of Better Writers Than I

It's Good Friday. Holy Week is a blur this year. We've had company from Iowa this week, and my youngest is leaving with her class for a trip to D.C. on Sunday. It's been very hard to find any mental time to consider the meaning of this week. And I woke up this morning with absolutely nothing in my brain to blog about.

So, what do I do when I need focus and inspiration? I turn to other inspiring people.

Like David Platt, author of the book Radical and pastor who does the "Secret Church" series that you can find online. In his session on "The Cross and Christ", he talks about the Divine Dilemma: how can God be true to his nature -- be unconditionally loving and be absolutely just -- with sinful man?

How can God be just and righteous and yet forgive sins, pass over sins? That's where we see that before the cross is for anyone else's sake, what God is doing on the cross is for God's sake. God is displaying His justice. He is demonstrating His righteousness. Why did Jesus die on the cross? Who did Jesus die for? He died for me? Certainly. Died for you? Certainly, but not ultimately. Ultimately, Christ died for God. The cross is ultimately centered around a demonstration of the character of God. Watchman Nee said, "If I would appreciate the blood of Christ I must accept God's valuation of it, for the blood is not primarily for me but for God.” We need to hear this.

Yes.

And people like J.S. Bach. In my husband's hometown, Bach's "Passion of St. Matthew" is performed every Good Friday. I attended last year, and even though I've performed in it before, I was particularly moved this time. I kept the program with the lyrics printed in it and used them as devotional reading for several nights. Wonderful words . . . like these, responding to the disciples falling asleep in the Garden:

I would beside my Lord be watching
That evil draw me not astray

The sweet melody adds a lot. But yes, oh, Lord, would that I could be always watching beside You that evil draw me not astray.

And people like A.W. Tozer. In his amazing book, The Radical Cross, he describes how the church has watered down the cross from a thing of death to a thing of beauty:

When men made of it a symbol, hung it around their necks as an ornament or made its outline before their faces as a magic sign to ward off evil, then it became at best a weak emblem, at worst a positive fetish. As such it is revered today by millions who know absolutely nothing about its power.

The cross effects its ends by destroying one established pattern, the victim's, and creating another pattern, its own. . . It never compromises, never dickers nor confers, never surrenders a point for the sake of peace. . . So the cross not only brings Christ's life to an end, it ends also the first life, the old life, of every one of His true followers. It destroys the old pattern, the Adam pattern, in the believer's life, and brings it to an end. Then the God who raised Christ from the dead raises the believer and a new life begins.

This, and nothing less, is true Christianity . . .

Amen. I wish I could write like this.

Have a blessed Good Friday everyone, remembering the true meaning of the cross -- and a blessed Easter celebrating the new life He rose to bring us!

He Is That He Is

Let's consider for a moment the attributes of our God.

He is awesome . . . majestic and glorious beyond what we in our finite minds can conceive or comprehend.

He is beautiful . . . and all beauty that exists in the universe has its source in Him.

He is compassionate . . . He feels our pain with us . . . He became a human so He could experience what we experience . . . "for we do not have a High Priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are."

He is eternal . . . everlasting . . . never-ending . . . no beginning, no conclusion . . . and all of His attributes, in the same way, have always been and always will be.

He is faithful . . . always true, always reliable . . . He keeps every promise He has made . . . a Rock.

He is gracious and good . . . completely and reliably good . . . gracious to give us good things that we have in no way earned or deserve . . . and anything that is good in the universe is only good because it is reflecting this quality of our God . . . all goodness has its source in Him.

He is holy . . . completely pure . . . completely other . . . different from all that He has created in nature and substance . . . and wholly without blemish or error.

He is infinite . . . limitless . . . boundless . . . all that He is, He is to the nth degree . . . and for each of His attributes, He is that quality without any limit . . .

He is just . . . completely and wholly fair at all times, and incapable of being otherwise . . . and all justice that exists in the universe is only just in that it is reflecting His nature . . . He is the source of every justice of every kind anywhere.

He is King . . . sovereign and almighty . . . in authority and control over everything in the universe.

He is love . . . unconditional and interminable . . . completely sacrificial . . . with no ulterior motives or hidden needs . . . and all love of every kind that exists anywhere in the universe has its source in Him and is a reflection of who He is.

He is merciful . . . forgiving and full of grace . . . "He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities" . . . while remaining infinitely just He found a way to also be infinitely merciful . . . He is the God of Second Chances.

He is near . . . ever-present, always . . . He is the shelter above us, the rock below us, the guide in front of us, the rear guard behind us, the companion beside us, and in His children, the Spirit within us . . . "Where can I flee from your presence?" -- no place.

He is omniscient . . . He knows everything . . . about the past, the present, the future . . . there is no piece of knowledge or information existing in the universe of which He is unaware . . . He is never surprised, never shocked . . . and He is the source of all knowledge that humanity has at any point in history.

He is power . . . strength and might . . . He is completely and wholly able to do anything and everything . . . "Nothing is too difficult for thee" . . . and any power, strength and ability that exists in the universe has its source in Him.

He is quiet . . . the still, small voice . . . the gentle knock on the door . . . he is a gentleman who does not force His way, but invites us to join Him.

He is self-existent and self-sufficient . . . the one thing existing that is not dependent on any other . . . He has all he needs within Himself . . . we are not necessary to Him in any way, but His desire is for us nonetheless.

He is tender . . . gentle and caring . . . like a Shepherd carrying a lamb in His arms, close to His heart.

He is unchanging . . . "the same yesterday, today, and forever" . . . and every one of His attributes continues unchanging for eternity as well.

He is wise . . . completely worthy of our trust . . . with infinite knowledge and infinite power and infinite love, He knows what is best for His creation is every situation and is capable and desirous of carrying that out.


"And you thought I was just like you!" (Psalm 50:21)  He is God, and there is none like Him.

"Praise the Lord, O my soul."

#lookingforlove #allthewrongplaces

I nearly jumped a curb in the van yesterday when the friendly DJ on the radio, who fills in the gaps between songs and ads with entertaining factoids, informed me that one-third of new marriages these days are the result of relationships that began on the internet.

Are you kidding me?!??

Now, I realize I'm nearing old fart status.  The world is a different place than it was when I was dating, I understand.  I know how the internet has changed the way we interact and all.  I even have friends who met through a dating website and who seem well-matched and happily married.  So, maybe this is just me.  But.

I still cannot imagine seeking out new relationships on the internet, much less committing my life to one of them.  You know, friends, people lie.  The web is like a virtual reality world -- you can put on any face you want and be whoever you want with few or no consequences.  Even with the people I talk to on Facebook, who are ALL people I know (or once knew) in real life, I understand that they are showing me only the part of themselves that they want to display to the world.  This isn't the real them.

Of course, face-to-face interactions can be just as false.  I mean, that's the whole problem with dating -- it's not like real life.  You're going out to entertain yourselves and each other, putting your best face on and your best foot forward, for a few hours at a time.  Once you get married and start actually doing life together, a completely different person can emerge.  But the internet makes those false faces even easier to don and maintain.

I am so glad to be out of the dating scene.  If I were to lose my husband (God forbid) and have to start over . . . well, I just might not start over.  Dating is scary to me now.  At least dating with the idea of finding a lifetime partner . . . and I wouldn't date with any illusions that we're "just enjoying each other's company" because I know how falling in love can slip up on you unawares. 

Marriage is great -- but marriage is hard.  Hubby and I have spent almost twenty-four years now growing up together and figuring out who we are and how we mesh and how to make life work . . . and I still don't think we're "there" yet.  It is truly a life-long process.  A wonderful one -- a challenging one -- one I wouldn't give up for the world -- but one I have no desire to go through again with someone else.

Especially with "JoeBloe24" whom I only know from the internet.  Yeesh.

Marriage and Maturity

Homeschoolers are an interesting crowd, really.  In our co-op in New Jersey, one woman told us, “I remember the day I joined this group, I was so relieved that you didn’t all wear denim jumpers and tennis shoes!”

 . . . and you might have to be a homeschooler to get that one.

In any case, one of the interesting things I notice about homeschoolers is, as a group, they tend to marry younger than the rest of us.  I’m not exactly sure why.  They are often more mature at a younger age than their peers; that’s probably a good part of it. 

The rest of us in society encourage kids to put off marriage until they are older, more ready, more mature.  Of course, nobody has a really clear definition of maturity in this context.  Mature enough to . . . hold down a job?  Raise a child?  Communicate patiently and effectively with your spouse?  Stop partying every weekend?  Achieve self-actualization and have a good sense of “who you are”?  Such qualifications would eliminate a good chunk of the population, and the species would start to die out.

I wonder, though, if we’ve got this thing backwards.  Maybe part of the purpose of marriage is to bring us into maturity.  Maybe this is why, historically, people have married young, and parents have had a hand in choosing the spouse – so the mature parents can ensure a good match.

One of the first things I learned after I got married is how selfish I was.  And then I had kids – and then I learned how selfish I really was.  Maybe, for some of us, it takes being married to realize how far we are from maturity.  Maybe we can’t learn to communicate patiently and effectively until we have someone in our face all the time whom we have to figure out a way to communicate with.  Maybe it’s easier to get a sense of who you are when you have an intimate companion there to contrast yourself with.  Maybe some of us will never be motivated to become a good, mature person until there’s someone we love who desperately needs us to be good and mature for them.

I read a book once with the subtitle, “What if marriage isn’t about making us happy, but about making us holy?”  Exactly.

When "Love" is Too Strong a Word

The Greek language, as I understand it, has different words for different types of love.  “Eros” is sexual, erotic love.  “Phileo” is friendship love.  “Agape” is something else entirely, the love God has for us that is purely unconditional, part of his nature, not at all dependent on who we are or what we do.

I’ve often thought we need to be able to make such distinctions in English because our language not only communicates our thoughts, but our thoughts are shaped by our language.  I read recently: “When the same word can be used to describe feelings toward a dog or a daughter or a deity, it makes no distinction between our latest enthusiasm and our deepest commitment.”  I’ve started trying to pay attention to the words I use.  I enjoy HuHot.  I appreciate high-speed internet.  I love my family.  There’s a difference.

On Good Friday, I attended a performance of Bach’s “St. Matthew’s Passion”.  I performed in this a couple times many years ago, but this year, the words hit me powerfully, as did the music.  I enjoy music.  I appreciate a well-turned phrase.  I feel satisfaction at an expression of profound truth.  But I found myself meditating that night on a thought I read in a book sometime recently: that everything God created reflects a little bit of Him.  I loved this performance not because of it itself, but because of what it reflected to me of the nature of God.  God is truth.  God is the Word.  And God is the grandeur of the music.  And I love God.

He intends us to enjoy the things he created for us . . . but always with the fact in mind that this thing we’re enjoying is a counterfeit, a poor reflection, of the real thing – the real Him, who we will get to enjoy in full someday.  Earthly blessings are never meant to satisfy our appetites; they are meant to whet them for the real feast we have coming when life here is done.  We enjoy things He’s given us on earth, but our love is reserved for Him.

And the immediate application of this truth for me is that He is to be grasped tightly while every else is held with an open hand.

The goodness and sweetness of a fresh, hot-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookie is a blessing from God that he means for me to enjoy.  It reflects his own goodness and sweetness.  But the cookie is a temporary thing – I eat it, and it is gone.  I can’t expect it to continue to satisfy.  It is only there to remind me of a greater sweetness I get to experience in full someday, and to make me long for it.

Writing these dramas for the homeschoolers and putting them on the stage has been a blessing.  To watch words and ideas fall together that communicate truth . . . to see the words lived out on stage like I imagined it in my head (or sometimes better than I imagined it) . . . to see students internalize the truths . . . to see them grow in their confidence before people . . . has all been tremendously satisfying.  But it has been a temporary thing.  It is over now – and there’s no guarantee I’ll have an opportunity like this again in San Antonio.  This was not meant to fill the hole in my soul; it was meant to give me a taste of the real Word, the real Truth, the real One we will someday stand before with confidence, feeling his pleasure.

God has given us many things to enjoy.  But our LOVE is reserved for him and those we bring with us to live with him.

 

Things I Will Miss . . .

Things I will miss when my husband leaves tomorrow to go work in San Antonio:

- Someone to keep the lawn mowed.

- Half of the clothes in the laundry basket.

- Someone to answer the stupid phone while we're in the basement doing school.

- Hearing the garage door open and knowing he's about to walk in the door.

- A tired body in a sweaty t-shirt returning from basketball with the guys and responding to my inquiry with, "Puh, I should just quit and never play again" . . . or "Yeah, I should just go pro now and get it over with."

- A reason to keep peanut butter in the pantry and Diet Cokes cold in the fridge.

- One more person relieving me of one more meal to cook each week.

- The random bad jokes . . . and the good ones.

- The warm body in bed beside me, and the hand reaching over to find mine when the alarm goes off in the morning and I'm still too groggy to talk.

- Someone to keep air in the van's back left tire that leaks.

- A loving voice telling me I'm beautiful all day long when I feel fat, slovenly, and crawl-under-a-rock worthless.

- Someone to do tag-team parenting with when my frustration and exhaustion reaches its limit.

- A pair of eyes whom I want to please motivating me to NOT quit school early for lunch because I'm sick of science . . . to NOT snack on a tub of ice cream . . . to get up and do some exercise instead of playing a few more rounds of Sudoku . . .

- The car parked on the right side of the garage that I have to maneuver around.

- Someone to figure out why __________ isn't working right.

- Seeing his wedding ring when I hold his hand.

- The alarm going off at 5:30 on Friday mornings reminding me that my husband cares enough about his walk with Christ to give up precious sleep and go meet with a couple guys at Hyvee for breakfast and accountability.

- An intimidating presence to scare the boyfriend into treating the daughter right.

- Praying together at night.

- Someone to watch the news with me.

- The hugs and kisses and snuggles, on demand, whenever I need or want them.


SIGH.  Only a couple months.  Thank God for emails, and texts, and Skype, and unlimited long-distance . . .

The Cost of Romance

Have you ever watched the TLC show “Say Yes to the Dress”?  It’s a reality show filmed in an expensive bridal shop in NYC.  They follow various brides as they go through the process of choosing their wedding dress.  And of course, there is always a lot of drama involved:  spoiled brat brides . . . ridiculous family members and friends making the process difficult . . . you know how reality TV goes.

I can’t help but watch this show and think, “What a waste.”  Thousands and thousands of dollars for a dress that you wear once.  I know the wedding day is important – I understand spending a lot on a dress.  But I don’t understand spending as much on your wedding dress as you would spend, say, on a brand new car.  A car has a big impact on the way you live your life; a dress makes you look beautiful for one day.  And no woman needs a several-thousand-dollar dress to look beautiful on their wedding day.

In my near decade as a Creative Memories consultant, I helped a lot of women preserve their wedding pictures in scrapbooks.  I saw a lot of lovely pictures, heard a lot of wonderful memories.  But one thing I never once heard anyone say is, “Gee, I wish we’d spent more money on our wedding.  I wish I had insisted on having the ultimate and the best of everything.”  But I heard many, many women say, “Man, I wish we’d spent less money.  I wish we’d taken some of that and put it on a down payment on our house – that would had much more impact on the rest of our lives together than those exclusively designed, hand-made hairpieces I special-ordered for my ten bridesmaids.”

I may just be too dang practical.  But I don’t think so.  I feel the same way about everyday romance.  I told my husband long ago that flowers are nice, but they aren’t my preference for a romantic gift.  Especially not roses.  Fifty bucks for a dozen flowers that will die in a week or so?  Silly.

Chocolates?  Okay, I’ll admit – I’m a chocolate fan.  (I also like those conversation hearts a lot.)  But again, they are gone in a week.  Okay, in a couple days.  Okay, maybe less.

If he’s going to spend that kind of money on me, I’d rather have a couple books that I take my time to read, that I can read over again, and that truly enrich my mind and heart for the long term.  Or even better, give me an experience rather than a thing:  take me to the theater, or out to a nice dinner, something like that.  I know that seems inconsistent – dinner doesn’t last as long as the flowers – but dinner includes conversation, interaction, connection.

Even better – a letter.  A really meaningful letter that I can read over and over.  Not a card with somebody else’s words.

And yes – ahem – it is merely a coincidence that I’m writing this shortly before Valentine’s Day . . .

Fair and Loving

I’ve got a new book, and I was just reading a chapter about fairness and how very unfair life is. Always. Isn’t it interesting, though, that we still demand fairness from the universe? No matter how much evidence we have that good people don’t always get the good things and bad people often do, that this is a given in life, that there is no avoiding it, we still feel the affront when we don’t get something we think we deserve.

I suppose it’s because almost all of us believe in God – or at least in some good and just force active in the universe. (In fact, the atheist who demands justice of mankind seems to be betraying his own dogma, don’t you think?)

I have a rather frightening thought: what if God really isn’t that concerned about fairness, at least the way we define it? What if he thinks LOVE is more important than justice? What if love and fairness are not necessarily always compatible?

It is fair to equally require all of my children to do their chores before dinnertime. But it is love to give a temporary pass to the son who was rejected that day by his crush and is lying heartbroken on his bed.

It is justice to fire the employee who has failed to meet expectations for the umpteenth time after repeated warnings. It is love to sit down with him and help him figure out why he keeps failing.

It is justice to send an unrepentant sinner to hell. It is love to take his punishment on yourself. Yes, I think there’s no denying that, while God is a God of justice, He sets love as the greater good. Jesus lists the two greatest commandments to be “Love God” and “Love your neighbor.” I think if we focus on being truly loving, we will not need to worry about if we’re being fair.

And I think this principle can be applied to our “class warfare” battles today. What if the rich were encouraged to give – not their “fair share” – but their most loving share? What if the poor, rather than protesting a lack of justice in the world, decried the lack of love in the world – and began the revolution by loving even those who take advantage of them?

As I said, just a thought. And perhaps a frightening one, at that.

While We Were Still . . .

It's Easter weekend, and we haven't decorated. We haven't bought candy or basket contents. I haven't even thought about any form of celebrating Easter beyond our church services Sunday morning. Part of me is relieved at being released from the obligation of continuing the little rituals from the girls' childhood, which were great when they were children and which now feel merely obligatory and devoid of real meaning. However, another part of me feels guilty that I haven't replaced those rituals with anything else to commemorate this very important holiday.

Today's Good Friday, the day we remember Christ's death on the cross. His death for me. Hallelujah and amen. But that death wasn't just for sweet little me.

He died for the lady who annoyed me at Target last week.

He died for the kids in school who made me feel ugly and stupid.

He died for the family member for whom nothing I do is good enough.

He died for the woman who told me my opinions meant nothing because I'm rich and have never suffered.

He died for the boy I dated who manipulated my feelings for his own amusement.

He died for the friends to whom I bared my soul who walked away and left me alone again.

He died for my gay friend sitting in jail today.

He died for my atheist friend who can talk circles around my best arguments for the faith.

He died for the corrupt politicians -- on the right and the left -- who have used their power for their own gain.

He died for hateful sign-carrying church members who give the Lord they claim a bad reputation.

And yes, he died for me when I was myself hateful, self-righteous, thoughtless . . . all the things I think I've gotten past and am reminded over and over are still there lurking in my nature, waiting to consume my better self the moment I give them the floor. He didn't die for pretty, cleaned-up me . . . he died for ugly, selfish, despicable me. And all the other ugly, selfish, despicable mes I encounter in the world.

But God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

While we were still sinners. Hallelujah and amen. This is how we know what love is . . .

How Great A Debt

Who has given God so much that He needs to pay it back? Romans 11:35

I came across this verse during devotions last week, and it has been percolating in my spirit ever since. The rendering in my devotion book was "Who has first given to him . . ." Echoes of 1 John: "We love because he first loved us."

He did the loving first. He did the giving first. Before we even had a physical existence, he gave us a world, perfectly situated and suited for our sustenance and pleasure. Before we knew him, he gave us families, homes, friends, all we needed to grow and thrive. Before we submitted to his Lordship, he gave his son for our sins. And he would have given all of this even if we'd rejected him completely -- which many people do. Because he loves us wholly, completely, unconditionally whether we love him back or not.

Who can out-love God? Who can out-give Him? How can we ever get to a point where we think God owes us something? "I've been such a good wife . . . you owe me a loving, attentive husband." "I've been such a good parent . . . you owe me a well-behaved child." I've been such a faithful Christian . . . you owe me an easy life." Such an attitude can only come from a complete lack of understanding of where we are without God. Such an attitude can only come from a misconception that we have what we have because of our own knowledge, skill and effort. Even the knowledge . . . even the skill . . . even the energy for the effort . . . are gifts from God.

And again, he gave us all this first. Before we loved him. Before we even knew him. Not because he had to, but because he wanted to. Because he IS Love. And such love inspires from us . . . attitude? Cheekiness? "You owe me . . . !" Oh, the shame.

As I've said before, the most together people I've known, the most godly and loving, are those with the deepest understanding of who they are and who God is. May I grow in that understanding every day.

Oh, the Deep, Deep Love . . .

Just watched Sean Hannity interview Bristol Palin about a self-revealing book Palin wrote about her life. Hannity praised her for her courage in sharing so many of the mistakes she's made, and he remarked what a really stupid kid he was and what really stupid things he did -- and that what ultimately turned his life around was when he became a Christian.

My first thought: surely nobody out there is surprised to hear that Sean Hannity was a hell-raiser as a kid.

But even more, it got me thinking about the necessity of understanding how bad you are to be able to really come to Christ. I know there are many friends who will disagree with me. There are many Christians out there these days who chafe against traditional teaching about sin. That we are born sinful. That we are very sinful. That we are, in fact, far too sinful to ever have any hope of saving ourselves by our own behavior.

Americans these days are all about promoting self-esteem. The biggest problem in society, we are told, is that people don't feel good about themselves. THAT's why they act badly. It's an interesting progression of collective thinking, actually, how we moved from an almost universal assumption that there is something inherently wrong with us inside -- which inevitably shows up in wrong behavior -- to the assumption that we are all inherently good and only behave badly because someone else treats us badly. It's one of those concepts that, when you really sit and think about it for a long time, starts to sound so illogical as to be ludicrous. Like artificial plants. And sugar-free candy.

I honestly do believe that one can't really come to Christ until one truly understands the amazing depths of one's sin. As long as you think that you're just not that bad of a person, you'll think that you deserve God's love. And if you think God's love is something you can deserve, you have a very small view of God's love. You can't possibly comprehend that massive overwhelmingness of God and his holiness and his love for us if you don't understand that it is beyond our ever earning or ever deserving . . . and he gives it anyway.

Every once in a while, I get a glimpse in my soul of the true extent of the love of God. And there simply aren't words for it. The most selfless, unconditional love we could ever experience on earth -- and every love we've experienced from other humans is actually contaminated with selfishness, you know -- the greatest love we've ever known is but a shadow of God's love for us. It can leave you breathless to consider it.

How can you truly love God, and trust him with your life, until you understand His love for you?