Flashback Fridays

I thought today’s Flashback Friday was particularly apropos given yesterday’s post.  This just goes to support why so many of us are finding ourselves in a situation where enough is never enough.  It was written on April 14, 2011, and entitled Being the Joneses.  (One editorial note, I say that we don’t own an i-anything, but I admit I do now own an iPhone….)  I hope you enjoy: 

I grew up lower lower middle class. My mom doesn’t like for me to say poor. But let’s just say there weren’t any extras. After my parents divorced, it was even tighter. However, mom always admonished me against trying to keep up with the Joneses.

I don’t know who started that saying, “Keeping Up with the Joneses,” but it’s become even more accurate as the decades fly by. Everyone is trying to not just keep up with the guy or girl next door, but surpass them. Your car has leather, well mine has heated seats and a fancy sound system. Your shoes are suede, well mine are designer suede with embossed stitching. Your husband manages a company, well my husband owns a company. Your kids started talking at 10 months, well mine knew Latin at 11 months.

Sound all too familiar? I like to think that I’m above all this, but I’m not. We’re not very tech savvy, so we don’t own an i-anything and we don’t drive Mercedes and we don’t own a half a million dollar house but I’ve found that I struggle (aka envy) in more abstract areas. Our little neighbor friend, a month younger than the kids, stopped by to say hello, and say hello he did! He waved and said hi and bye and mommy and daddy and all sorts of other stuff. My genius children stared back – I picked up their little hands to get them to wave & the second I let go they fell limp at their sides. I panicked – oh no, my children aren’t advancing quickly enough, aggghhhh, help, we’re falling behind. I wrote about how I went to a barbecue alone because my husband was out of town and then stared enviously at all the other wives accompanied by their husbands. THEIR husbands made it, but mine travels.

Oh, the green eyed monster. It may not be material things that you’re after, but I would hazard a guess that the other things are more insidious. And it’s nothing new – these cravings have been worming their way into people’s hearts and minds since the beginning of time. That’s why so many of the commandments in Exodus deal with wanting other people’s stuff. Beyond the obvious one, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house….nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s,” are others: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,” “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” The translation of this in The Message says simply, “No other gods, only me.”   And all of this envy, this lusting after things or people or situations, it’s just saying I want something other than God – God’s not enough.

But as I was struggling with this last week, I had to remind myself that everything is not as it appears. Just as a bunch of crazy people think I’m supermom, which I think we can all agree couldn’t be further from the truth, they aren’t the Joneses either. Those children out-talking my kids may not run as fast or have the same sense of humor or be able to lift large objects with Hulk-like strength 🙂 And those husbands walking into the barbecue may be in town but they may party at night with their buddies or play on the computer at all hours or struggle with pornography or spend all the family money.

That’s when it hit me – I am the Joneses. I am married to a wonderful man who loves me. I have three children who are the most fun little people I have ever met. I have a great job and friends and parents.

You are the Joneses too though. Stop looking at the green grass next door and check out the bounty in your backyard. If you’re single and lusting after that marriage you see, then know that there’s a woman trapped in a loveless or abusive marriage that’s lusting after your singledom and the first chances you still have ahead of you. If you’re married and lusting after that fun single life, know that there’s a single person who would love to come home after work to a house with a husband or children. If you want kids and don’t have them, then know that there’s a mom crying because the cops told her son was just jailed for drug use. If you have kids and are stressed out by finances or disabilities, know there is a couple that is undergoing their third IVF treatment with their hearts breaking because they can’t get pregnant. That doesn’t make your situation less hard. It just means that Mr. Jones and Ms. Jones don’t have it any easier.

You are the Joneses. I am the Joneses. If we could just get on board with being the Joneses, maybe we would be transformed and spend our time thanking God for his abundant blessings instead of “coveting our neighbor’s house….”

Psalm 49 -Do not be overawed when others grow rich, when the splendor of their houses increases; for they will take nothing with them when they die, their splendor will not descend with them.

Psalm 68 – Sing to God, sing in praise of his name, extol him who rides on the clouds; rejoice before him—his name is the LORD. A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling….When you, God, went out before your people, when you marched through the wilderness, the earth shook, the heavens poured down rain, before God, the One of Sinai, before God, the God of Israel. You gave abundant showers, O God; you refreshed your weary inheritance. Your people settled in it, and from your bounty, God, you provided for the poor.

2 Corinthians 9 – And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

Okay, so I was debating what to use for today’s Flashback when I got an email from a triplet momma.  Her trio are climbing out of their cribs, not yet two, and she wanted to find out the latest on the drama of my crib conversion and if I had any tips for her.  I had to laugh.  I about the worst role model you could have for the change from cribs to big kid beds.  So I thought I would give you a progress report and then flashback to the story that people still stop me to talk about. 

It was mid-February when our nights began to unravel.  I was not comfortable using crib tents and the kids could all climb out of their cribs, even with the mattress on the floor, so we decided to convert to big kid beds.  How bad could it be right?  Here’s a summary of how the insanity unfolded that first week. 

We’ve gone back and forth since then.  We’ve gone back to cribs, with them turned around so the high part is in front, and the mattress on the floor, but eventually, since our children could scale a 40 story glass downtown building, they made their way out.  They also, FYI, can climb the baby gate in front of their door so they basically can make their way out like lunatics in the house (and they can unlock the doors and open them so we’re always in lock down mode at the house).  Bed time is still hard.  We start to bed about 7:45 and they go to sleep sometime between 9 and 10 pm.  They have ripped apart their dresser.  They have torn their closet to shreds.  They have nearly broken their wooden beds.  They have colored on the walls (and no, I have no idea where the crayon came from, it’s like they’re prisoners smuggling in contraband).  We’ve tried everything.  They stay up later, and they still wake up before 7 am.  They’ve skipped naps, nights are still chaotic, possibly more so.  They turn three in October and I’m just hoping as they age it will die down.  Last night they all climbed over the baby gate (we can’t shut their door, they FLIP out, we clearly should have done it when they were younger but that ship has sailed), and just came out in the living room to hang with us.  It was 9 pm. 

So that’s the update.  Don’t let these smiling faces fool you, they do not stay like this:

And here’s the infamous flashback.  It was written on February 19, 2012, and entitled Insert Expletive Here:

I realize I post a lot about my faith and God’s hand in our journey. So I also realize I’m not allowed to curse because it sends a bad message for someone who writes about faith and family to have four letter words on her blog. However, the most restraint I can use tonight is for you to use the expletive that you think most fitting given your background. It may be that is, “gracious.” I assure you, regardless of my personal Christianity, I am human and that is not the word running through my head tonight.

As you know from this week’s post, we converted to big kid beds last weekend. Harrowing is not nearly descriptive enough of a word. Yesterday, instead of nap time, the eldest took off his poopy diaper (the disastrous turn potty training has taken is a whole other issue), and the boys proceeded to spread the poop all the floor (beige carpet), doors and each other. After a day of work, we still can’t get it out of the carpet though the blankets and doors (and skin) has been restored. Despite running them like dogs at the Aquarium this morning, which was, in and of itself, a fun adventure, only the baby took a nap. I am not willing to part with naps at 28 months. Especially when, at 8 pm tonight, they are still running around hopping from bed to bed while Bray sits with them (when I threw Piglet at the completely defiant little lady we realized it was time for me to leave the room). We tried to bathe them to calm them down, but while trying to get their p.j.s, the little lady took the contents of the potty chair and poured it on our floor while the baby crawled into the fireplace to play in the soot.

There are no words to express the incredible frustration, anger, dismay, and Titanic sense of sinking in our household. Bray and I are taking turns losing our temper at least so that one of us steps in when the other one literally can not take one more minute of this naked disobedience and destruction. We can’t really process tips right now, we’re in sheer survival mode, but we’ll take prayers.

Since I am in North Carolina today for the SheSpeaks! conference I decided to post for today’s Flashback my post from the day I registered for the conference.  I will be back with all new material on Monday.  Heck, you may not be able to get me to shutup.  Until then, enjoy Through the Tears, the Vision Reappears posted on March 15th:

I’m sitting here, at my desk, typing these words with tears in my eyes. There’s always been a part of me that’s wanted to be a writer. I’ve been keeping a journal since I can remember and writing short stories since way back. I’ve written everything from letters to boyfriends, fiction projects with friends, devotionals for women, and, obviously, blog posts. I love to write. 

But every increasingly, particularly since the summer of 2010, I’ve felt called to move more into ministry as a career. Writing, speaking, and all that goes with that. It’s a very impractical calling. It comes with a significant pay cut if I ever acted on it. And while I felt that calling strongly last year, I’ve struggled more with it this year because of the reality of what it would look like. How radically our lives would change. As the reality set in, I felt myself taking steps back. Doubting what could actually happen.

I felt a radical shift in my mentality today though. Last spring, I saw that Lysa Terkeurst/Proverbs 31 was putting on a conference called She Speaks for aspiring Christian writers and authors in North Carolina. It looked so interesting but it fell on Bray’s big surprise 40th birthday party weekend so I didn’t look any further. Well, yesterday registration opened for the 11th Annual She Speaks conference this July. I started reading about the break out sessions and the leaders and I wanted to go SO badly. But it is expensive. It is far away. It entails me spending a weekend away from the kids. So I thought it wasn’t really practical for me. I talked to my dear friend who’s a Christian writer and asked if she would consider going, and she would, and we both decided to at least talk to our husbands about it. 

I printed out all the materials, price shopped hotels in the area, and took it home. After the kids were down (loosely, they were behind the baby gate in the room is about all), I went into Bray’s office and made my pitch for consideration. I told him I didn’t want an answer now but just to think about it and let me know given the budget implications. Well, he just said right away, “GO!” I said, “but it’s expensive.” But he just came back with, “GO!” When I priced flights this morning and saw how pricey it would be to fly to North Carolina I emailed him the update and asked if he wanted to reconsider. All he said in response was, “BOOK IT!” 

So I mapped out all the courses I wanted to take, researched the speakers and topics of the ones that conflicted (some of these break out sessions have five choices, and I’d like to go to THREE of them!), and went on-line to register. I can not describe to you the overwhelming emotion I felt as I started clicking my selections: Writer Track, I would like to meet with a publisher, place me in a Writer’s Peer Evaluation Group, and then the break out choices like From Blog to Book Deal, Reaching Today’s Busy Woman, Writing Out of Your Passion, Expanding Your Ministry…….. I think I cried with every single click. It felt like I was actually DOING something to follow my calling. Like God had just opened this amazing door to actually pursue this writing thing and Bray had pushed me through it. His still small voice saying to my spirit, if this is what I have in store for you, I will make it happen. Trust Me. 

It is terrifying. Just the thought. But it’s also the most exciting thing I could imagine. And I can still ONLY imagine it. Last week, at Beth Moore’s final bible study session, she said, “You are safe, even in the middle of a war, when you are in the center of God’s will.” She said that some of us are trying so hard to stay safe, that we could be sitting on our couch eating a ham sandwich and choke and die. If we’d stop trying to keep ourselves safe in our own strength, even when that means running from God, and just follow the path He has for us, then we will be safe in the center of His hands. In the center of His plan. In the center of His will. 

I’m not at the center right now, but I feel like at least I just made a u-turn and stopped running from it.

Today’s flashback is from March 17, 2011.  I pre-selected it after writing yesterday’s post about battling with mistakes from my past.  This was entitled Battling Back the Ghosts.  The thing I love the most is that only this morning did I discover that the scripture I used to close yesterday’s post was the same scripture I used to close this post a year and a half ago.  God is so faithful to use His word – if that isn’t just more evidence that He is the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb. 13:8)…

I’m being called. Into a role. Into a brand new frontier. It’s my dream. But I believe it’s also my calling. You may be one of the many women out there being called to do something different. Something way outside your comfort zone. To take a BIG step of faith. Of course there are obstacles. But there is one big obstacle that I have, that you may have too, that should not be an obstacle. There are real obstacles and then there are self-imposed obstacles. We self-sabotage our dreams. That is a big self-made obstacle.

Our past. Previous actions. Misdeeds. Inappropriate behavior. Missteps. What will people say if I do this new thing KNOWING what I used to do. What I used to be.

That’s where I’m at right now. My new course, my calling, is something in the faith-based arena. However, I am not pristine. I am not untainted. I am not without regret over certain past behavior. And it haunts me, only now, as I’m being called to a new place. To a higher calling.

I believe that women, in particular, are stymied, stunted, diverted from the best and highest course for their life because of apprehension over “what will they think?” I am determined NOT to let that stop me.  Look around you. So many people that are doing great things, life changing things, amazingly phenomenal things, have a history. Have dealt with a past haunting them. If you look at their history, it would not lend itself to the current miraculous place that they are in now. In fact, if Vegas were taking odds, it wouldn’t take these odds.

What if those people, those who have been game changes, event makers, faith shakers, had let those odds, that past, a haunting, those questions about what people would think, stop them??? What if Peter had said, I’m sorry, I can’t be the Rock upon which Christ will build His church because what if I bump into someone who saw me the night I denied Him? What will they think of me? They would never follow me. A man of weak faith. Wouldn’t they question if there’s any substance or value to what I say? In fact, I might end up just being a hindrance to the building and spreading of Christianity. Yet he somehow, and I don’t know how, managed to move past that. The cloud of worry over what people’s perception would be. He got over the regret and LET GOD work wonders – miracles we’re still reading about thousands of years later.

Don’t let something you’ve done stop you from being who God designed you to be.

Don’t let your calling go unanswered because of fear over what people might think.

If anything your testimony will reach those who otherwise would have gone unreached because your faith would have felt inaccessible. God has used adulterers and murderers and faith-deniers to rock the world.

And sweet sister, you are pristine, clean, pure before our Father and Savior.

Jeremiah 29:11 – “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Psalm 103:11 – For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

Romans 8 – Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free…And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose…What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one.

For those of you just joining me, this summer I’m doing Flashback Fridays as I work on finishing my books.  This post comes from nearly a year ago.  I’ve been going through old posts as I build my portfolio for the writers conference I’m attending (two weeks from today!).  I stumbled on this one and it still felt so true.  I hope you enjoy The Other Side of the Mountain from August 2011:

As you might imagine, I hear a fair amount of kids music these days. We have a little c.d. player (yes, we’re not high tech in my house) and a stack of kids music c.d.s covering everything from the alphabet to nursery rhymes. I’ve had this one annoying song stuck in my head all week. It goes something like this (I apologize in advance for my singing):

The bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain, to see what he could see.
And all that he could see, and all that he could see, was the other side of the mountain, the other side of the mountain, the other side of the mountain……..was all that he could see.

Clearly the people that write children’s songs are geniuses. But after hearing this song in my head for several days, the wisdom of the lyrics began to seep in. Here’s a bear that is restless. Discontented. He’s looking for something new, exciting, different. So he sets out on a big adventure. He’s going to go to the OTHER SIDE of the mountain. Maybe it will change his life. Things could be so much better. Then he gets there. To the other side. To see what he could see. Turns out, all that was there was the other side of the mountain. Can’t you hear his little bear brain whirring, “Hmmmmmmm, this is just the other side of the SAME dad-gum mountain. What was the big appeal? Why was I in such a hurry for this? It’s the same mountain.”

Have you been there? Are you there today? Are you fed up with your side of the mountain? Are you ready to take off to see what you can see? Leave your job, your marriage, your church, or your friends…… Unsatisfied, unfulfilled, unsettled. Wouldn’t life be better on the other side? Can’t you imagine what must lay JUST on the other side? Might I offer the wise words of a children’s song to you? When you arrive, it will just be the other side of the same mountain. Life has a way of working that way. I know, I’ve gone on these adventures. They promise more than they can deliver. So hang in there. Say a little prayer. Take a deep breath. Reconsider going over the mountain.