Tools Sitting in the Shed

I've got a nice shed in my back yard.  My dad built it along with my husband and sons.  We roofed it with the help of a neighbor or two who helped hold struts into place.  It is beautiful - still smells like wood inside.  It has shelves full of winter clothes, roller blades, kid's bike helmets, and balls.  But the front half of it is where we store our garden tools.

The lawnmower sits there.  I need to use it today if the sun comes out enough.  The bags of seed, fertilizer, and other chemicals sit against the wall.  Leaning on one wall is the shovel, rake, leaf rake, and other various tools for yard work.

There they sit.

Enough usefulness in them to keep the yard in good shape.

But they are useless unless they are used.  Strong, good quality, the right tools for the job - but useless unless used.

It is not all in the tools.  It is in actually picking them up and using them.  In getting blisters on your hands from the grip of the tools.  In the soreness of a back at the end of the day.  The satisfaction of a hard job tackled and finished.

I'm going to be sitting in a class next week learning tools.... learning them from a man who is excited about these tools.  Great tools, can do amazing things.  Perhaps the best.

But the man's yard is a disaster.  Weeds grow knee deep with roots down halfway to China.  Grass never cut.  Bushes taking over the flower gardens, never trimmed.  Grass dying since it is never watered.

His tools sit in his shed - never used.

I like tools.  Don't get me wrong, I do.  But I like jobs done - if you don't have the right tool, adapt, learn, adjust, put muscle into it.... but do it.  I'd rather have the basics in tools and a job well done than a well stocked shed and nothing done.  Last week, with mis-matched gloves and an old shovel, I put in my vegetable garden.  I don't have a wheel barrow, so I hauled dirt and compost the old fashioned way - by sheer grit and muscle by the bucket load.  I'm a do-er.  Don't get me wrong - I like tools.  I have a few of my own.... picked up in unusual places, adapted to whatever I am doing at any given time.  But for me the proof is not in the shed, but in the garden.

Scotch-Taped to Constuction Paper; Still Valuable

One of the hardest things about working on a team is people.  Missions is full of interesting people.  Perhaps not normal people.  Odd people.  Awkward people.  People with no people skills.  Determined people.  Pioneering people.  Hard-nosed people.  And among them are a few sweet people.  They keep everyone else from killing each other, I think!

We've got some people on our team.  Tough people to get along with.  People who step on toes but have no awareness that they did.  Even worse, if they were told, instead of reacting with gentleness, they react with anger.  Difficult people.

Last week, inevitably, another conflict with one of these people.  Sadly this is with a person who has not learned to bite his tongue when angry, so he inflicts large scale damage.  It's been a rough week.

The whole things started off with people who didn't respect basic boundaries.  Nothing huge or scary, but really simple basic stuff that a normal-brained person would get, but sadly we seem to have a member of our team who doesn't get normal social graces.  A request in light of his actions set another member of our team off on a jaunt into anger.  That person is the one who fights dirty.  There is no past in his anger.  Everything is in the present, and every past detail is brought up and hurled back at people.  It's tiring.

I was closest to the eruption, so I bore the brunt of it, but I am not alone.  I've watched the hurt in others eyes this week, too, heard the comments, the seething anger underneath.  It's sad.

This is the stuff we don't write home about, right?  We're missionaries, remember?  We're supposed to be good, have it together, and get along.  But I have a suspicion that we are not the only team with people on it - people with their problems.  I just have the ability to write because I am anonymous.

So this week I listened to someone tell me that I do everything wrong, that I am lazy and not keeping up.  (This person knows full well that I am so anemic at the moment that when I stand up, I go dizzy, and if left in silence for more than ten seconds, I will be asleep.  That my long muscles ache, and I feel daily like I've just run a mile.)  I listen to them tell me that I am a bad mother because I don't parent like they do.  Worst of all, I listened to them tell me that I am just damaged because I have lived through sexual abuse.

Eventually, I politely told this person that I am sorry that I am not meeting my obligations in my job and will from now on be there and be doing what I have agreed to do regardless of how I feel.  Then I told this person that I need to be going and since we seem to be only going in circles, I am going to end this conversation here, and I walked away.

I've had a rough week.  I've alternated between being strong and wanting to curl up in the fetal position and cry.  Between calmness and burning anger.  Between exhaustion and tears.  I'm back at 100% running on empty.  (The goal right now with my health is to let me physically crash so the medical system here will take me seriously that there is something wrong.... perhaps this is doing me a favor since I will crash faster running at full steam.)  It just feels so unfair.

And then I am a mother!  I am a good mother!  And I fight like a mother bear when attacked on my children!  I know the accusations are false.  They are so false that they are ludicrous, but they hurt.  People parent differently.  I was accused of not loving my kids....  oh, if I was a swearing type of a person, I would throw in  few choice ones here!  My kids feel loved, safe, secure, and cared for with me.  They have deep meaningful discussions with me when they are alone because they trust me.  They know their mom will tell them the truth and will be there.  I do make them work.  I firmly believe that chores are a part of good raising and will help them be successful as adults.  I do not baby my kids and do everything for them.  It is not a sign of lack of love, but a determined love.  I love them, so I raise them to be capable.  I work with them, and sometimes they enjoy working.  Sometimes they don't, but that is ok.... life, sadly, is not all enjoyable.  But, grrr.... to accuse me of not loving my kids simply because I chose to parent in a different way.  I walked away because the temptation to yell.... throw something... blow up... whatever was too strong.  Those are lies.  (What is that I always tell my kids?  Don't respond to idiots telling lies about you - they are too stupid to listen to you and those that love you won't listen to them.)

The second thing that bothers me is that some people still consider me "damaged goods" because I was sexually abused.  Hmpf.... working in the wrong profession then, I think, if you don't believe in the transforming power of God!  Do I have areas of scars?  Probably.  I wince faster when I see someone's face get that serious, far-away look when some topics are brought up.  I am more sensitive to listen to pain that they may not talk easily about.  I watch children and who hangs out with them and how they act.  Jesus has scars, too.  I will never be the snow-white, beautiful image of innocence - that bland, unaware innocence that never believes evil can happen.  But I will be the one in the trenches fighting for those who hurt.  And if occasionally in that, I feel triggers of my own pain, and I cry, so be it!  I would rather be damaged than a damager - like those who throw words like spears.

All week, I have been thinking, when I have been thinking straight and not crying, about my grandpa.  Not only was my grandpa one of the kindest, gentlest men I have ever met, he loved me.  There is a special place in my heart for him because he had a special place in his heart for me.  I was not "the strong willed child" or "the trouble-maker" to him.  I was loved.  But it was only a few months after I got engaged that one of the side diamonds fell out of my engagement ring.  I was horrified.  My fiance was not in the country, and my ring had broke. My mom gave me a little piece of black construction paper with two shiny things scotch-taped on it.  Seriously, they looked like glass glitter.

My grandpa was always helping people.  He had helped this old neighbor move and clean out his house.  As thanks, after the months of work it took, the old loner had given him this black construction paper with two pieces of "jewels" scotch-taped on.  He told my grandpa they were diamonds and would pay back the debt the man owed him.  My grandpa just smiled and said thank-you.  He passed them on to my mom saying that they are most likely nothing, but could be worth something.  They sat in a box on my mom's dresser for another few years.

When my side diamond fell out, my mom gave me this old paper and told me to ask the jeweler what they were.  Perhaps they were diamonds.  Well, I'll tell you something - jewelers are not usually impressed with stones that come scotch-taped to construction paper!  But I explained the story of the old loner and his gift to my grandpa, and the jeweler agreed to look.

He held them up to a light, squinted through his special glass, and said, "Well, these are definitely NOT diamonds...."  I was just in the middle of saying, "Well, I guess it didn't hurt to ask...", when he said, "wait a sec...." and rubbed the stone with his finger and peered again.  "Hmpf, that was just glue from the tape, not a fault....."  He peered some more, then whistled and muttered, "what do you know!"  They were diamonds - two larger, quite good diamonds.  He set them in my ring, and I've had them in that ring for 16 years - until  last year when one of them got knocked out helping hold my son for 40 stitches.  I miss the diamond, not only because I have no engagement ring to wear (no money now to fix it), but because my grandpa's diamonds and their story are gone.  I guess there is one left, but... not the two.  My grandpa is gone, now, too, and with him the quiet gentle love that he loved me with in his own special way.

I think about those diamonds now.  They were diamonds.  They had value.  How they were treated did not change their value.  They may have been unearthed from a lonely, odd, old man's house, scotch-taped on torn black construction paper, but they were still diamonds.  Valuable.

I try to remind myself of that this week.  I am who I am, not how people treat me.

Sometimes it helps.

On Being a MK

 I am an MK.  I know the new term is TCK, but it is not my term.  I am a MK, and I am proud of that title.  I am fundamentally different than an "army brat" or an "embassy kid" or many other types of TCKs.  We may share some commonalities, but there are also vast differences.  I am not only a MK, but I am the child of an MK.  I am also the grandchild of a MK.  My children are now the fourth generation of MKs in our family.

At times when people hear that, they ask the obvious, "oh, have you read this or that book about TCKs?"

I haven't.  Maybe I should.  Maybe I will one day.  There is a reason, though.  When I grew up as a MK, there was the "normal" way to be a MK.  You went out, and you either went to boarding school, or if you were lucky enough to live in a country where it was possible, you went to local school.  (That was 30-40 years ago, homeschooling was just not common.)  We did neither.  We home-schooled.

I went once to a MK type of event.  I didn't fit in.  I felt like a stranger even among what was supposed to be "my own".  There was no space for me.  I didn't fit either mold.  No one had really encountered us yet.  I felt rejected, estranged.  And I walked away.  I don't struggle with boarding school issues.... my grandma did, and she told my parents not to put us in one.  I don't struggle with local school issues - we didn't have one.  I had my own issues... ones that few understood.  And I felt left out, so I turned my back on all the TCK stuff and walked away.

I may change that stance.  I am taking my kids to a MK event.  I realize they have a need to have kids who can understand things in their lives that other of their friends just can not.  I'm happy that their lifestyle is not so odd.  How I was raised is also not so odd now.  Many kids are home-schooled on the field now.

I may even read that book.

But before I do, I thought I would write a little about being a MK.  I've been thinking about it recently.  Life as a MK is much like looking through a kaleidoscope.  Kaleidoscopes are beautiful, mesmerizing, entertaining.  "It must be so exciting!".  This is always said by people with two feet on the ground, never by the pieces in the kaleidoscope. 

I'm approaching 40, and my life is still like a kaleidoscope.  Full of beauty, but ever changing.

Being a MK is a life sentence of living with a profound sense of loss.  Nothing will ever be the same as it was.  There is no "home" to return to.  The experiences we had of "home" were transient - pieces in the kaleidoscope lined up a certain way, making a beautiful pattern.  That was our "home", our "normal".  And then it turned.  It doesn't take much of a turn to adjust the pattern - what was familiar is gone.  People moved, we moved, people came... the ever changing pattern.  Other people can go back to where they grew up, and there is the school, the neighbor, the store, the park, the....   Our lives have none of that.  Even if we go back... different people are there.  Even if we visit old friends, they are in different settings among different people.  Our home does not exist - it was only a certain moment in time.

It is like a kaleidoscope.... every piece, every pattern... turn and it is gone... never to return.  Each new turn is interesting and has a beauty of its own, but each turn means a loss... pieces are there, but the picture will never be the same again.

I enjoy change and cope with it well.  But I grieve what is lost.  What people in our churches don't fully grasp about the life of a MK is that it is not just the moves we make that are hard.  It is the constant moves of those around us.  If we love, we lose that relationship soon.  Communication has improved and this does enable us now to keep a minimal contact with old friends, but that day to day fellowship in close quarters changes.  The colored chips fall in a new pattern.

Kaleidocopes are mesmerizing.  They suck you in.  Each new pattern calling you to enjoy it.  There is beauty in this life. I wouldn't chose a different life.  I have no desire to be a normal kid, but I live with a profound sense of loss.  No permanence, each move - whether my move or others' moves, brings a change to my kalidascope, never to return to what was.  It is this deep sense of loss under-riding life that is different about a MK.

There are days I just stop.  I just go for a walk and am sad.  I can't explain it to everyone around me, and I stop even trying.  I go to be alone, to mourn alone, to walk, to remember, and then to come back.  I struggle on some days being totally involved where I am when my memory goes to a time before... a pattern of a previous turn, and I feel homesick.  Homesick for something that no longer exists.  Then I go on.  The kaleidoscope keeps turning, the pattern keeps changing..... each design has familiar elements, a different pattern, so familiar, so new.  I enjoy the new view.  I miss the beauty that is gone.

My Own Patron Saint

I just found out I have a patron saint.  The priest told me, so it must be right.

I work very part time in an old folks home .. actually more of a nursing home.  We are specialized in end stage Alzheimers and geriatric/psychiatirc.  In other words, the people no one else wants, we get.  I only work occasionally to keep my foot in the door and, well, because being a missionary is not a good way to get rich or even pay all the bills!  Recently, I went back to work almost full time for three months.  We had some emergency staff absences at work, so someone had to fill in for awhile.  One staff broke her foot, another's husband fell down the stairs and broke about five bones, a pregnant coworker threatened to miscarry, and another poured a pot of boiling potatoes over herself.  We are just not a big enough home to absorb that many emergencies and keep going, so I got suddenly dumped with a lot of shifts.  They also were shifts all over the grid - some days, some evenings, some nights, and then more all mixed up again.  It was grueling.

We've got a few big men now.  In fact, I don't think we have any man who is under six foot at this moment.  Most of our men are nice....  but disease does interesting things to the brain.  We have three who are "fighters".  One is sort of comical, one is sporadic, and one is downright dangerous.  We've been hit, kicked, punched, grabbed, spit on, and attacked.  I'm getting tired of it.  My arms begin to look like I'm an abused wife - bruises of different stages of healing up and down my arms and legs.  My worst injury was a few weeks ago when our more dangerous man grabbed my wrist and squeezed with all his strength.  He popped my joint, weak from two previous dislocations, in and out of joint.  I couldn't lift anything for a week, and still have pain with it.  I'm supposed to be on "light duty"... yeah right!  All it means is I have an excuse for moving a little slower - none of our patients are light duty.  Still, it is better than my coworker who got a concussion from this man.

Anyway, the other night, our retired priest went bezerk.  It took four of us to just get his diaper changed and him washed a little.  Honestly, the things I hear priests and nuns say after they get Alzhiemers makes me wonder...  for weeks he kept complimenting us on how we looked.  Looking up and down us as we steadied him on his feet to change him, he would comment, "Hmm.. you are a very. attractive. young. lady."  I felt like saying, "hey, you took a vow of celibacy".  Another time, he yelled and screamed at us and told us, "I already paid the first girl, you aren't getting any more money!" after calling us all prostitutes.  But this time, he went bezerk, trying to hit us, trying to ram us with his chair, barking and hissing and growling.  After we changed him, I sat with him attempting to calm him down.  I began all the Catholic prayers I knew because if I started them, he would finish them before yelling more.  Finally, since it was St. Patrick's day, I asked him about St. Patrick and who he was the saint of.  The priest gave me a disgusted angry look and leaned closer to say, "He's the patron saint of people like you!" in a very derogatory tone. 

Hey, I have my own patron saint!  The saint of nurses aides who keep getting beat up, perhaps?  Well, we need a saint working there! 

So thankful that my coworkers are back on the job, and I am back to working only one day a week!  I was getting tired of being beat up!  Even though I love my patients, (and the "dangerous man" is really sweet when we are not trying to undress or wash him), I am getting tired of it.  It is demoralizing to be beat up, swore at, and called a prostitute simply because you care enough to help wash ...um...um... well, wash that off old people's rear ends.

My grandpa died recently and as people gave me sympathy over the last weeks, I had a hard time being too sad.  I was only happy that he had lived his life well and died quickly after a good day in church and visiting with friends.  He never ended up in a home and going through all the horrors we see there.  All three of my grandpas were able to die peacefully at home.  That is something to be grateful for.  I think the prayer of every worker in a home like ours is, "Please, Lord, when I get old, let me die quickly."  It is not that we aren't nice.... it is just that Alzhiemers is an awful disease.  The only thing I think I hate more is Parkinson's which leaves the mind but takes the body first, then the mind.  Alzhiemers steals the brain, but then comes a time when people are less aware of their suffering than with Parkinsons.  Both are terrible.

In March, I Remember

She used to wander the halls at night.  Friendly, wanting to talk.  Confused, unsure of where she was and what was happening.  She'd make small talk with us while we did our charts or took our break.

"Are you married?"

"Do you have children?"

"I have three boys."  Here her face would grow soft remembering the chubby babies, and she would smile.  Then her eyes would take on a far away look.

"I had one more."

"His name was Samuel.  He died when he was a baby."

She would sigh, a soft little sound.  "I miss him.  I will see him again one day soon.  I want to see my baby."

People used to ask me when I would "get over it".  I felt.... wrong... for remembering.  Then I met her.  She's in her late 90s ... still waiting to see her baby Samuel.

She's grown older now, and the horrible person-eating disease has taken its course.  She no longer walks the halls and stops to chat.  She no longer talks more than a word here or there.  Some glitch in her mind, or some decay, has made her put everything in her mouth and chew it voraciously.  She has the look of a feral child.  Still, there are nights when I change her and tuck her back into bed that her eyes meet mine.  I always think the same thing.

"Soon, sweetheart, soon."

You will see him soon.

She is too far gone to remember.  So now I remember for her.

I printed pictures today, determined to decorate an empty wall in our dining room.  Things that are special to us, family photos, laughing babies, gangly teens, good friends.  I put them in frames and lay them out on the floor.  We will decide how they go tomorrow. 

Then I sat there looking at them.

That vague empty feeling - something is wrong, nothing is right.

I sat and quiet tears pooled in my eyes.  There was my baby girl who died before she was born, who they threw in the trash "because she was not a human being yet".  There was my other baby who died before we knew what it was.  Laughing faces smile from the photos.  My children are my blessings.  But every time I hang their photos, I pause.  That empty space.

Someone gave me a gift - a string of hearts with my daughter's name on it.  That will go on my wall in among the family photos.  Somewhere in there, I will hang a memorial to the tiny one we lost.

Grief is such a lonely thing.  People grieve because they remember.

Grief of a baby not yet born is an isolated thing.  No one remembers.  I was the only one to know my child, the swelling in my belly, the flutters of little kicks.  The hope. 

It is March again.  In March, I remember.

I tuck my patient in again at night and I tell her, "soon, sweetie".  Soon she will see her child.... and mine.

Give them a hug for me when you do.

Grace - That Is All It Can Be

Again, only if you have been reading my blog for awhile will you grasp the weight of this post.  But even without knowing all, you can enjoy it.

My husband and I, as I said, are from different cultures.  When we married, there were not many of our type of mixed marriage.  It was a difficult engagement for both of us as all our friends warned us about each other.  My friends and extended family said some pretty hurtful things about my husband and what he might do.  My husband's extended family told him it would be better to marry a dog than a foreigner.  Thankfully, both of our immediate families were very supportive - although they both struggled to cope with the cultural issues that we encountered. 

In that setting, one where each of us had to continually defend the choice to marry the other to outsiders, we began to encounter typical marriage problems.  They were perhaps heightened by culture, but not entirely caused by culture.  Yet asking for help was difficult.  Who would we ask - all these people who heatedly told us not to marry each other?  Then they would say, "see, we told you so!"  And they did.  Others we asked only would say, "well, its cultural problems".  So we struggled on much longer alone than we should have.

We hit some pretty rough lows and our family went through a lot because of it.  We are grateful for one couple who decided not to tell us "we told you so" or "it is just culture problems and that is what you get for that type of marriage" and who did not get tired of the simple "being there" that it took to get us healthy again.

We are doing well now.  We still have cultural issues, and recently with some family things going on, they have been interesting, but we know now how to manage as a couple.  Peace, or as much of it as you can have in a house with four teens and preteens, reigns in our house, and we thoroughly enjoy each other.

In the last few years, there have been a few other marriages like ours.  It's fun to see them start out.  It's fun to have someone who thinks our life is completely normal.  Most of these couples are involved in ministry, too, so we have more in common.

Last year, we began talking and praying about an idea.  We wanted to gather these couples together for a retreat - a chance to be together, to develop relationships, to provide a place where we are normal, a safe place to talk, to encourage each other.  To be able to say, "I am here for you".  This year, we are going to do that.  We are meeting with about six other couples.  Some are doing well, I think; others I know are struggling.  I don't think of myself as an expert, but I want to be able to tell them, "hey, we're here, and we get your life.  We're safe to talk to."

If you knew me (or prayed for me!) years ago, this is the last thing you might of dreamed of us doing... but we are!  It is grace.  That is all it can be.

Holding the Pieces

I was just reading the facebook page of a missionary family that recently met with tragedy.  What happened breaks my heart.  There are hundreds of expressions of sympathy on their site.  I hope one day they can wade through them and be comforted with how many people care about them. 

But there was one comment that made me wince.  It meant to be kind, really.... but...

It said something to the effect that they were so sorry for what had happened, but were comforted by knowing that they were missionaries so they were sure that they would get through it fine since they had great faith.

sigh... if there is ever a time you don't want to be put on a pedestal it is when you have just hit tragedy!


We need permission to fall apart.... because sometimes we will.... and then we will beat ourselves up for it..... and then we worry if we say we are falling apart everyone will run from us when they discover we aren't perfect.

 Why can't we say, "If you fall apart, I'll be here to hold the pieces until you heal again."

The Flip Side of Grace

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you will know that I am on a slow walk towards grace and freedom.  My husband calls it "our freedom journey".  We're walking out of a form of legalism, of expectation based religion, out of constant criticisms, out of the "front" that missionaries so often portray, into grace, freedom, truth, transparency.

It's been quite the trip!

We both owe a lot to a few who have chosen to walk alongside of us.  Some have done that just for an afternoon, others for a year or so, and some have stuck with it for the whole ride.  We are indebted to them all, and each holds a special place in our heart; each we love.

If you've been reading for awhile, you will also know some things in our lives:

1. We're in a cross-cultural marriage.
2. We lost a child.
3. We went through a marriage crisis.
4. We went through a sudden work related crisis.

You will also know that I have struggled with each of these things.  I still struggle with some of them at different times.  Each has changed me.

Most recently, I have been struggling with the work-related crisis.  The crisis itself was not the hardest thing.  It was the reactions of others that were so hard.  But that is a story that has already been told as much as it can be told. My blog has been more silent as I walked through this lovely minefield of PTSD.  The horrible disconnect from everything is lifting, like fog as the morning sun travels towards the high point of the sky, and I am able to make out shapes and recognize others.  I'm at least to the point that I can verbalize some of what I am going through, and that is a big step in the right direction!

But I still hurt from what happened.  The surprising and difficult thing for me is "why did the hurt come from people who should have been the ones who most supported us?"  That question is hard.

I went to church last week tired.  I debated about just staying home, but instead I told God that I was too tired to listen or care, but if He wanted to speak to me, He could try. (Really, reading my blog will totally blow away the idea that missionaries are anywhere remotely close to perfect!)

Our pastor was talking about the idea that we think we deserve something to happen or not to happen based on how we have acted, and that God is not operating in the sphere of thought.

I listened!  And I began to think.

What if it is not me getting or receiving good things?  Me being rewarded with rewards.  Not resting or deserving good.  Not saying, "I've been through this or that, suffered that, done well, so I need a rest, a this, a that... to be protected, to be honored, to be.... "; but it is not our rewards that God is interested in - it is us God is interested in.  Us as His trophies.  Not as His things - as in a used thing uncared for; but as His show-off valuables, a thing delighted in, as in a work of art, a detailed delight.  "See what a good job I did on that one!" 

Stepping out of the works cycle means stepping out of both boundaries.  "I did bad - I will be punished" - yes, but also "I did good, I deserve good - to be protected, to be loved."  It would be an awful reality to live in that (out of that cycle).  Totally unfair - nothing I can do can help or hurt  - and my treatment is dependent on the capricious whims of someone else - except for this one fact: the character of the God we deal with.  That He is good and loving is the only thing that makes this whole crazy system work.

It is so outside of our way of thinking - so totally unfair.  Which is funny, because we will happily take the "bank error in your favor" unfairness, but aren't so thrilled about the "hey, but I was good!" type of unfairness.  The pain and unfair things coming in times it shouldn't from people it shouldn't.

Freedom from the "do this, do that" mentality means freedom from both ends of the spectrum.  One we greet with delight; one is harder to shake free from.  But there is only so much freedom in having one wrist unmanacled.

God is the same - trustable, good.  He is operating outside of our "fair" cycle because He is interested in us as trophies of His work, not as people who "finally get what we deserve" - either good or bad.  Some how that makes dealing with the pain caused by people who should have supported us easier to handle.

I think what hit me that Sunday was that I can't take grace as the freedom from the "you get what you deserve" and not take it as also freedom from "you don't get what you deserve".  What happens to us is not related in either way to what we deserve.  What happens to me is a result of a God who is trustable and who cares about me working to make me His master-piece.
 
(There is caution in how I say that.  Because of my past, I react very strongly to the thought of being used.  If you say, "God let you go through this so He could use you", you had better stand far away as I am liable to punch you.  God "getting anything" out of me sickens me.  I don't want to be a property, a used thing.  But put in the context of God is creating something beautiful that He will delight in - like a painting, and I can handle it.  I quilt, and I like nothing better than when someone takes time to stop and admire the quilt and see the stitches and design and hear the struggles and how I overcame them with this quilt.  I am not "using" my material, I am creating something that is both praised and gives me praise.)

A P.S. to Walking In

A post script to the questioning if we should be walking out or walking in....

It was something my husband and I discussed as we sat working on our puzzle after or team leader walked out of the room.  We wondered about something.

If there is such a reaction by christians at even the mention of the word "gay" or at anything having to do with it, what are we setting ourselves up for?  We are now the parents of teens - good teens for the most part.  We're proud of them.  When we were parents of toddlers, we pondered issues of toddlers.  We even thought over the "working mom/being at home mom" debate.  We had already made our decision on it, so we didn't need to think about it, but we did.  It was an issue that affected kids in the age our kids were.  I think we are now looking at teen issues in the same way... it is time to think about them and develop our thoughts because our teens are in this age - they will encounter these subjects, and we had better have thought about them, too.

What concerned us with the common reaction to anything "gay" by Christians was this:  What then happens when a teen has a question, a feeling, a anything?  What if a kid has a thought pass through his head.... who does he talk to?  If he or she can't talk to his parents or his youth leader or anyone at all in the Christian circles about this thought, "Why did I think that?  Why did I react like that?", who will he go to?  He will go to someone that is "safe".  Someone who doesn't react with horror and disgust.  That person will be someone he knows at school or on the internet.  That person will tell him, "well, maybe you are gay.  Gay people are born this way." 

We've reacted to the point that we are not safe to go to.  Instead of that teen being told truth in a loving way, "Thoughts come and go.  Having a thought pass through your head is not who you are, but it is something that happens.... thoughts come from things we've heard, seen, felt... and the devil would like to use them to tangle us up and get us off track.  I'm glad you shared that thought, because bringing them in the light takes the power away from them.  Let's pray, and then let's talk about how to counter those thoughts.  And let's talk again so you don't go through this alone."

Instead of that, we are pushing them away with our paranoia.

It is not that I believe these things, like homosexuality and other things aren't wrong, it is that I believe we need to be safe enough to talk to.  We will not ever communicate safety with hate and disgust.  Perhaps better with sadness and love.

It is similar to something we were all taught growing up.  Sex before marriage is wrong.  I still firmly believe that.  But it is more in how we were taught it.  Save yourself for marriage.  Be pure.  Don't be defiled.  There is a ton of words and phrases I could write out that would convey the messages that were common in the church as I was growing up, but those messages are painful, so I won't.

I was challenged and encouraged once by a man who sat at our breakfast table (after the kids left for school) discussing how he wanted to communicate this message that he still firmly believed in to his kids.  He said, "I don't want to communicate to them that a sexual sin puts them outside the grace of God or that they are damaged forever from one sin, while I still want to communicate sexual purity.  I just want to do it without fear and condemnation that leads them to hide their struggles from us and feel like their spiritual life is over if they fail in this area."

I sat stunned.  I had never heard this from a Christian before, but I needed to.  What healing is in those words!  We do need to communicate clearly and with conviction to our children, but it has to be more than the "stay pure, that is what God wants, and no one wants something second hand".  It has to be more than that.  We have to be able to communicate with our kids that it is ok to talk to us, that even their struggles and failures are ok to bring to us.  I honestly hope with all my heart that my kids stay sexually pure, but even a deeper desire than that they don't sleep with someone, is the desire that if they do, they come back to God and be forgiven and go on.  I would rather that than the fear and shame of a sin being so great that they walk away from God because they think He will never forgive them or see them as having the same worth.  We have to stop making some sins the unforgivable sins.

I am sure I could be accused of not caring or not placing enough worth on purity.  If I am, so be it.  Just because I care about one thing more than another thing does not mean I do not care about the first.  It just means the other is more worth to me.  I care about my kid's purity.  I care even more deeply about their relationship to God. 

Now I will tell you where my personal story interacts with these thoughts and why I value what this man said so much.  I grew up in the "stay pure, don't be defiled" environment as a child who had already been defiled.  Before I even understood what sex was, I was abused by some men who saw an opportunity to use a defenseless child.  The constant teaching of the church - which was well meant - was a constant reminder that I was not good enough.  I was defiled, and there was no getting that back.  "If people knew....."  (Which, by the way, was the same thing my abuser had said to keep me quiet, "don't tell, if people know, they won't like you.")   The very teaching that was to help us ended up hurting me.  When purity is valued so highly that there is never talk of grace, of forgiveness, of restoration,... this hurts children who have already been hurt.  When sexual sins are made so much of that they are taboo... much, much worse in comparison to other sins (how about greed, hate, backbiting, gossip, violence, stealing...) it says that these are only sort of forgivable.  You can be forgiven, but you will never be the same.

I think as a church we have to wake up and stand staring at statistics for a minute.  When I was growing up, it was said one in every four girls in America were abused.  Now they are thinking one in every three.  We can't just preach to the 2/3s.  We have to rethink our approach to this whole area of homosexuality and sexual purity so that we can teach it without damaging the already wounded.  We have to be able to tell kids that when they struggle and fail, we will welcome them with the same love and acceptance as Jesus does.  That there is sadness and grief in failure, but not a shunning.  Their value is in being children of God.

And honestly, I think when they grasp that, they will be less likely to sin, not more likely.

We can not hurt our wounded.  We can not push away our struggling.  And we can not hate our fallen.

Jesus never did.

Can we let these topics be safe to talk about in the church, in our families, in our friendships?  Love is still more powerful than hate or shame.

Walking Out or Walking In

We sat in my living room the other day along with our team leader and another friend watching the late night news after a day of meetings.  A news article came on about gay marriage and the fight for gay rights.  Our team leader huffed and said that this needs to be banned, and no one can define a gay couple as a "family" since the very definition of a family is a unit to procreate, and gays cannot produce children.

I don't know what got into me, but I said it.  I am not pro-gay... honestly.  But then again, I am rethinking... maybe I am not either anti-gay...

I said, "Not all hetero-sexual couples can reproduce either."  Our team leader and his wife adopted due to infertility.  "You wouldn't classify you as not a family just because you couldn't have children.  The definition of a family has to be more than that."

He just said, "oh, so now you are using our adoptions as an argument for gays!" and got up and left the room.

I don't know if the man was offended or simply disgusted with gays or what.  He does abruptly leave conversations at times for reasons that are not always clear to others, so an abrupt departure was not too abnormal for him.  I asked my husband if he thought he was offended, and my husband sad he didn't think so.  I don't know.

My husband and I talked it over as we watched the rest of the news and worked on a puzzle spread out on our coffee table.  There is such an animosity to gay people, gay marriage, gay parenting and all.  Let me get it clear (I almost said let me get it straight, but that ended up looking funny in this sentence.)  I strongly believe that choosing a gay lifestyle is wrong.  I believe that it is not right at all.  But that is not the point here.

Why do Christians react so strongly and so negatively?  We wondered about that.  What point does that serve?  We wondered if the strength of the gay movement is fed partly in response to the heated animosity of Christians.  We wondered how our hate, disgust, and vehement fighting against their desire to have the right to marry, to have children, to.... whatever.... is leading at all to them learning of the love of Christ.  Has anyone been won to Christ by hate?

We work among a people in a religion that is not well loved.  People also fear and can easily hate people of this belief.  We believe and teach Christians not to hate - to befriend, to show love, to be kind, to see people.  We believe that if we hate and fight against these people, we will never win them for Christ.  It is in our love, in our acceptance, in our kindness, in our care that we are able to speak with our lives.

Didn't God says the world will know us by our love?

Then why do we hate?

I grew up in the church.  I know the answer to that question.  "We hate the sin, but we love the sinner."

Really?

Then why do we spit out the words when we talk about gays and lesbians?  Why do we fight so hard against them.

What would happen if we showed love?  I don't know what that would look like, but what would happen?  If we stopped trying to restrict their rights, if we stopped giving those looks, if we stopped whispering about them... if....

What if we invited their kids over, babysat for them, or simply started by smiling at the next gay couple we saw?  What if we handed out cool water or hot chocolate at one of their events - without having slogans or tracts or anything.  What if we just showed love?

And - even though many Christians will be scandalized at the thought - what if we stopped fighting their attempts to be able to be married?  Are we so insecure that we think marriage can be threatened by that?  Do we define ourselves only by our gender or our ability to produce children?

I personally think that marriage is something greater and bigger than the definitions I've heard given in support of opposing gay marriage.  I've heard that it is "one woman/one man" or this recent one "family is designed to procreate".  I personally believe that marriage is intended to be a demonstration of Christ and the church - of that unity, that love that is above and beyond all else.  We are a living example of Christ's love.  Marriage is a example of how Christ loves us.  There is nothing a gay couple can do which can threaten or destroy that.  We have nothing to fear....  nothing, perhaps, other than that existence of our own hate and fear destroying the image of Christ's love in us.

It's true that we have no example of how Jesus treated gays.  None.  It would have been easier for us, maybe, if we did.  But we don't.  What we have is only the example of how He treated the two most hated groups in His society - the prostitutes (and the woman at the well who wasn't even getting paid for her "services") and the tax collectors.  Both groups where the religious society drew up their robes tighter around them in horror.

But Jesus didn't.

I'm re-thinking my religion.  I'm not re-thinking my stand on homosexuality.  But I am  re-thinking the whole "hate the sin and love the sinner" idea.  I'm thinking we too often say that, but clearly communicate "hate the sin and the sinner" idea.  Like when we walk out in disgust at the very mention of a gay person.

Who's going to share the good news with them if we walk out?  Maybe we need to be walking in to their lives instead?