The one ingredient for wherever you are

It's funny how you can think you've failed at something before you're even half done. My children are beautiful, transcendental almost, smart as whips, hilarious, easy on the eyes, little gemstones of people. But there are days when I think I've failed them hopelessly, and a good friend of mine similarly gifted in sarcasm laughs with me over an old joke: 

They are only 8, 7, 5 and 4. There are many years to set right the chaos and the lost chances, the depression, the days I've spent wandering the floors of this house walled up in my own brain, the days spent studying for my PhD, the days spent grieving things maybe too hard, the days spent trying to be perfect and the days lost giving up on perfect and giving in to totally way less than perfect instead.

There have been many days redeemed already, but a struggling perfectionist often fails to remember those, and Satan crowds in and threatens to steal small joys all the time. There is a revolutionary out there who is beating a strange new drum, marching like the Pied Piper, singing a strange song that captivates and it truly teaches us, the recovering perfectionists, and we drop everything and climb this alien hill listening to her song with only one verse: COUNT JOY. She doesn't say, forget sorrow. She doesn't say, life will be easy. She doesn't say, you will not fail. She doesn't say, it won't matter that you fail. She just says, COUNT JOY. 

I started, this simple, paradoxical, and yet difficult practice, first on paper and now mostly in my head. It is odd to me still, how it whips my head the opposite direction, away from the mesmerizing power of grief, shame, dirtiness, failure, imperfection, poverty, and questions without answers. A bird flits by silent, and a day full of failures is lost in the splendor of one moment. A daisy on the lawn, and I forget about the unmown long grass in the symmetry of six white petals and one yellow center. I turn my swing around, and the fingernail moon catches my eye and a dark night of depression is light again and the tentacles of a nightmare loosed and forgotten. Yet a little verse nags at me - "weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth..." (2 Timothy 3:6b) - oh, let that not be me! A love of knowledge, a women always with many pans in the fire, head easily turned by this new theory or the dozen books on the nightstand, a new way to cure poverty or another way to bring peace in this war-torn region of Africa... How do I fight this? Not with more of anything. But with less. 

I don't need more answers. I don't need more faith. I need a certain kind. Faith like a little child.

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me." (Matthew 18:1-5)

I find my answer on a bookmark in the book I've been reading for months, the one in the bathroom that I can't swallow unless I read it a page at a time. It's a picture Rosy drew for me, one of hundreds she's delivered to my bedside table, and on it is my answer about how I'm parenting and my answer about how I am to live this torn and tattered life of questions without answers. On one side of an imperfectly cut paper heart, in black and white, is the word HOPE. And on the other, in a rainbow of colors, is the word LOVE. This child, at age 7, knows.

You may be a missionary far afield, holding the beauty of a fragile orphan in the palm of your hands. You may be on Wall Street, juggling millions and striving for integrity in a business plagued with character demons of all shapes and sizes. You might be a nurse trying to slog through a dozen patients and still provide loving care to that one individual that tugs at your heart strings through your overworked shift. Are you the Starbucks barista who hands desperate soccer moms love in a steaming cup with a smile and a "have a nice day"? Do you check peoples engines or sell them used cars to help them make it to their next big payday? Or are you the mom down the street who's slogging through mountains of dirty laundry, mapping out Charlotte Mason homeschool curriculum and trying to make good choices about organic food for your brood?

Wherever you are in life, you are commanded to be like a little child in faith. Close your eyes and jump. I remember two glaring details about being a child: being horribly afraid and being dangerously adventurous. I was, at the same time, plagued by fear and amazingly immune to it. I was afraid because I was small and vulnerable, but I was often unafraid because I had no idea what to be scared of. Looking back, it's a miracle any of us survive the jumping from high places, pummeling down steep hills, and racing across monkey bars, bleachers, logs over streams or anything else we dared to do in childhood. Yet in Psalms 116:6 it says, The Lord protects those of childlike faith. So squeeze your eyes shut, just like you used to do, and let go. You don't need the kind of faith that moves mountains. You don't need to be the sage that fills commentaries or writes an amazing blog filled with nuggets of knowledge, answers to poverty, or solutions to world peace. You simply need to hold one little truth, a Holy piece of truth, always in the palm of your hands, always deep in your heart, and always on your lips. The King James Bible said it this way:

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think [dwell, fix your mind] on these things. (Phillipians 4:8)

Rosy Thul, at age 7, simply said, HOPE; LOVE. Ann Voskamp says, Count 1,000 gifts. An old hymn says, Count your blessings, name them one by one; count your blessings, see what God has done.

I may fail at a million things a day. Some days it feels miraculous to clothe, feed, and love my children enough by days end. To greet my husband with a smile and a kiss, and sometimes yes, I'm still in my pajamas when he walks through the door at 5:30. It's a stretch to get the cats some cream and let the dog out the door to run the woods by 9 a.m. I drink cold coffee many mornings. I don't even crack my Bible by noon on a good day. I have no idea what I'm going to do about homeschool curriculum for the fall. All my plans for kids sports, hobbies, pool dates, and our already struggling home chores are on serious hold until we find out if Amelia will be in chemo in July.

But I am not a failure. I am just a child. Loving. Learning. Counting up joys. And holding fast to the only thing I know for sure. That Jesus is God, He is my hope and my rescue, my peace and my provider, and He will keep us and help us until the end of our days, whatever comes.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will fail; where there are tongues, they will cease; where there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love; but the greatest of these is love. (I Corinthians 13 NKJV/ESV exc.)

Novemberish

 The weekend dissolves into a chaos of sleep and awake, night shifts wrecking havoc on my already Novemberish brain. The house a pigsty of dirty dishes and laundry, summer clothes and shoes yet to be packed away, a sheet music scattered living room and clothes-riddled bedroom. I feel my failures deep and sure, the housewife that never can be found in November, when the seasons hush and slow to winter's lone-harp song, and my body slows with it, always sensitive to cancer meds in this fresh winter. I bog down into low thyroid days, when all I do is sleep or dream of sleep. The children call me Mama Bear, hibernating for the winter, and I wonder why my cubs don't climb into the den for a long winter's nap like the black bear in the woods.

On Saturday, we are up late to cheer my hockey team on at an important semi-final in a tournament, and I sit with hockey moms who are still perfectly coiffed at 10 p.m., talking about how much housework they got done between games today, each mom one-upping the last with her beauty and time efficiency. I feel the prickles of my newly growing hair like a crown of shame, think about all I have not managed to do this weekend, and realize this is what Joy is after: life unmasked in the blogosphere, where we let our imperfections be part of our beauty and don't hide in the dark when life doesn't go as planned. I slide on thankfulness like a warm coat, and insulate myself from the tyranny of this perfectionist motherhood. My husband smiles down at me, sensing my soul rest, his brown curls unruly under his wool cap, our children running amok up and down a ramp to the men's bathrooms, burning off late night energy.

I wake up Sunday to a road too icy to trek to church, even in all-wheel drive. Slide under the down comforter and praise for a few more hours rest. In the sunlight, the world is frosted with snow, a wonderland of crystalline beauty, in all our yards autumn messiness. The children track mud and snow into the house and there is a small snowboot track on my sheet music still scattered on the front room floor.

I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about how He loves. ~John Mark McMillan

Instead of sliding down into the nothingness that perfectionist thinking breeds, I count my blessings at Sunday's end,

...the white glare of snow making sunshine bright and world clean
...hair growing back, black and plentiful
...music from The Story blaring through speakers
...safety on icy roads
...moments with my dear aunt and uncle
...Sunday dinner with Grandma and Grandpa, gales of giggles echoing
...sleep, sleep and more sleep
...another week of night shifts winking at me
...down comforters and warm husband

My time in jail

Charleston jail

Did you grow up thinking being a Christian was kind of like being in jail? Once you were in, you couldn't get out. Inside, it was sort of pleasant because you got to know Jesus better, and you loved Him with all your heart for sacrificing Himself on the cross for you. But God the Father was kind of scary, and you weren't quite sure what the Holy Spirit was doing rummaging around your insides. In jail, you expected to spend most of the time prostrate in praise of God, and the rest of the time, using armor in these epic battles with evil during times of trial. When you finally left jail when you died, you entered another - albeit more pleasant - jail called heaven where you really couldn't picture what things would be like other than praising God for endless hours, which sounded kind of boring.

You treated God the Father kind of like the jailer. You tried to stay off His radar because you were afraid He would eventually figure out you were a fraud and you didn't really believe as sincerely as you were portraying. You act out a series of lies in order to keep things looking perfect on the surface. You are the good prisoner, you don't need to sit down and talk with your Father, and you certainly hope He never disciplines you.

Bad things happen with no warning. Guard your heart - it's not shatterproof. Keep life noisy so there is little time to think. Never let God down; work harder and harder. ~Sheila Walsh, Love Melts Frozen Tears, from "Outrageous Love: a Love that Seeks No Reward"

The truth is, life is muddy sometimes. You get caught up in arguments, in pain, in difficult relationships, and - heaven forbid - your own sin. A friend sees your perfectionism, and whispers, "When the pain of remaining the same becomes greater than the pain of change, then you will be ready to change."

Something in your life clicks into place, and the ice in your heart begins to crack, water bubbling up over the surface, a whole well inside you of frozen tears and broken promises, disgrace and disgust, pain and unsaid prayers. You live in a fog and feel completely frozen in time, with no way out and no eyes to see. You turn on the fan to get rid of the mist ushered up by the melting tears in your soul, and from time to time, you see a little bit of your future. Sometimes it scares you and sometimes it exhilarates you.

You are the broken butterfly, dead on the table and missing a wing. Your glory is being destroyed so that Christ's glory can shine through you, but you don't know it.

I don't know your story. I don't know what you are dealing with or not dealing with. What I do know is this, God doesn't want you to merely survive, He wants you to live! Every weekend I listen to stories of women who have dressed in an overcoat of shame for years. Childhood tragedy leaves such deep wounds, but they are wounds that can be healed by the outrageous love of God. Perhaps, like me, you are afraid to face what is going on inside of you. I had no idea what would happen to me when I walked through the doors of the hospital and they locked behind me. All I knew was that I couldn't live as I had been living any more. I also believed God loved me: I just had no idea how much. At the lowest moment of my life God's love began to melt every frozen tear that I had carried for years. It was a healing rain. ~Sheila Walsh

Let your wounds be bound, oh wounded. May you go free, captive. In a way, God has no expectations of you at this point of your life. What He cries out for is for you to love Him back. And out of that mutual love, then you will see the extravagance of His embarrassingly deep love and pursuit of you, and all you will be able to do is praise Him and work for Him from that point on. You hold the key to your personal jail in your hand. It's in the shape of a giant heart that was handed you long before you were even a twinkle in your parents eye. He has planned your escape from this prison since the beginning of time and all you have to do is put the key - His love - into the lock.

In a perfect world

I stand accused

There's a list a mile long

Of all my sins

Of everything that I've done wrong

I'm so ashamed

There's nowhere left for me to hide

This is the day

I must answer for my life

My fate is in the Judge's hands

But then He turns to me and says

I know you

I love you

I gave My life to save you

Love paid the price for mercy

My verdict: not guilty

How can it be?

I can't begin to comprehend

What kind of grace

Would take the place of all my sin?

I stand in awe

Now that I have been set free

And the tears well up as I look at that cross

'Cause it should have been me

My fate was in the nail scarred hands

He stretched them out for me and said

I'm falling on my knees to thank You

With everything I am I'll praise You

So grateful for the words I heard You say

~Mandisa, Not Guilty~

My friend's baby, sweet, ravaged beauty from Malawi, her eyes roll back and the first responders are doing CPR. And I could not be there to hold my friend. To bring her meals in the hospital and movies to watch and something arty to do. That's what I would do in a perfect world.

 My friend is raped and running scared, that wild look in her eye that shouts fear. I couldn't prevent it. I couldn't keep her company the night she chose to go out because she was lonely. Because that's what I would have done in a perfect world.

I wake up punching my husband, the nightmare too real, I the string puppet mastered in sleep by the darkness of my own past. I couldn't stop myself. I couldn't avoid the nightmare. I can't change my past. That's what I would do in a perfect world.

I am a recovering perfectionist. This is pretty apparent if you walk into my home, which is more likely to be messy than picked up. You will probably find clean toilets. House-cleaning has become a rolling probabilities puzzle (will my child be hurt worse by toilet germs or the toys on the front room floor?). But I have time for my kids, now that my house doesn't have to be perfect. My kids show it too, messy mismatched clothes, dirty toes, chocolatey grins, skinned knees and grass in their hair. But they are so happy.

My cancer - constant companion since 2008 - is a pretty good cure for perfectionism. Like an instantaneous relief print of a photograph, cancer highlights what really matters and darkens those things that don't. And then there is the special needs kid that gets thrown into the mix out of the blue in 2009. Then you lose all your friends in 2010 and suddenly realize, where did I get these standards from, and are they True or false?

My kids watch more movies now, because it doesn't really matter, and they love it.

My husband occasionally cooks dinner, because it really does matter that I have a break.

We are mulling over school choices for our kids, something we've never done before. (Homeschool or die. Umm, where is that in the Bible?)

I am treating myself with a little more respect as I slowly, surely, begin to comprehend that I am not "filthy rags" to my Father, but a precious, beautiful, flawed daughter He longs to love on, lavish, support and always be with.