Flashback Fridays

Today’s Flashback Friday is from early in 2011.  It was entitled They’re Stupid  and was inspired after watching a rare sweet reality television moment, enjoy: 

I was not popular in high school. I wasn’t UNpopular but I certainly wasn’t popular. My graduating high school class had 535 people in it. I was a number. Not particularly known one way or the other. The first year was particularly difficult for me. First, I was a girl in high school which isn’t an easy feat regardless of your station. Then it was a brand new school and I didn’t know anyone. I was going through an awkward phase (I have pictures to prove it). And my parents were recently divorced, and my brother and I lived with my newly working mom in, well, lower lower middle class. It was a challenging time. One I’ve never written about and one I don’t plan to write about for a while. But I wanted to provide a bit of background so you could appreciate how a particular statement resonated with me last night.

As you may know from a previous blog entry, I have a couple of television guilty pleasures. And I do mean guilty. They are not intellectually stimulating or growth inspiring to my faith. They are guilty pleasures. Ones I have no mind to abdicate at this time. Surely, eventually, they’ll die a television death, and then they’ll be gone and I won’t replace them. On a recent episode of one show, a girl was on a date with a boy who liked her very much. He was sharing how, even though he is very smart and well-educated NOW, he didn’t do particularly well in high school because he was unpopular. As he wisely stated, social standing can play out academically. They went on talking about other topics and he said something so entirely funny and smart and romantic. She took his hands, and looked him straight in the eyes, and said, “You are like no other guy I know. The people who said you were unpopular, whoever made you feel unpopular when you were younger, they’re stupid.”

Did you hear that? Whoever made a negative commentary about who you are and your worth and your value and what a treasure you are, they are stupid. They don’t know what they’re talking about. You are precious and wonderful and should be the most popular person in the whole world. I have to tell you, the look in his eyes when she uttered those words made me cry. It almost made him cry. It’s like she took years of this pain, this worthless label he’d worn as a brand, and she patched over it with worth. The brand won’t ever be gone, but a beautiful person whom he valued told him those people didn’t know what they were saying and I think you are amazing.

I am not a huge advocate of calling people stupid, but I have never heard the word used more appropriately. They are stupid. People who decide, for whatever insecure reasons, to meanly make judgments on who deserves to be popular and unpopular are stupid. I have nieces who are teenagers and I saw this play out just two weeks ago as one got verbally abused by some mean-spirited teens – so much so that it left her in tears and her spirit crushed. It’s heart wrenching if you are the unpopular kid. And it stays with you for life. My husband went through it. I went through it. This guy on television illustrated how much damage it can do – here he was 13 years later still desperately longing to hear those people were wrong.

If you endured this, and you don’t have someone right now to tell you that those people were stupid, then let me speak those words to you today. They were stupid. They didn’t know what they were talking about. You are beautiful or handsome. You have so much value. You are precious and such a wonderful addition to our world. They said those things out of very painful insecurities of their own not realizing the lasting pain it would cause you and not even believing what they said. So if you can, release a piece of that pain today. And another piece tomorrow. Each day come read this last paragraph and know that you are wonderful and any negative worthless labels that were given to you in elementary school or middle school or high school or college or at your office are not true. They are lies. The truth is that you are precious.

Isaiah 43 – For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior…you are precious and honored in my sight, and I love you….

So this installment is from February 2011 when Bray and I camped out to get the kids into a Mother’s Day Out program.  After this past fall’s melee with learning the private school process, I sense it is only going to get worse.  But this was such a sweet reminder to me how God is always at work and that I need to just relax a little!  Enjoy Mommies Camp Out and I’ll have a new Father’s Day post from the farm this weekend – rustle up your cattle friends, we’re heading back to Louisiana!

Well, that title should really say mommies AND daddies camp out.  Let me give you the punch line and then work backwards – “They Got In!”  That’s right, at 16 months old, I’ve been a little nerve ball about getting my babies into an amazing school next fall for two mornings a week (their starter program).  I’d interviewed and researched schools in the area – traditional, Montessori, you name it, trying to find the program I thought would fit them best.  And I just couldn’t find one.  Everyone told me at this age it doesn’t matter, that the program is just for socialization, but I couldn’t get on board.  I think that’s a lost opportunity.  If I have bright children (which as you know from previous posts, my children are geniuses  ), why not capitalize on this time for them to learn new and interesting things.  Well I fell in love at Memorial Drive UMC’s open house.  It seemed like the perfect fusion of a program – structure so they would get used to having that in a school environment coupled with the opportunity to capitalize on their own intellectual strengths.  The teachers were great, the program certified and the environment just happened to be the church where Bray and I were married.

So I rushed home, got ready & dashed back up to the church (the plan was now Gindi 9 pm to 12, Bray 12 am to 4:30 and then Gindi back on while Bray got the kids up and fed – work be darned).  Luckily, the two people were a couple and were camped out for the infant program which meant……..drum roll please…..I was first in line for MDO 2 (my kids program)!!! TaDa!  FIVE MINUTES later, a woman came and got in line behind me for the MDO 2 program, I won it by FIVE MINUTES!  Shortly after visiting with the campees, I retired to my car until Bray rescued me where he then proceeded to sleep out in the parking lot until I rescued him by which time I could no longer sleep (meaning I got about 3 1/2 hrs of sleep).  Would I get in?  Would they wait list one kid who would just totally miss out on school next year (I exaggerate I know – but I’m slightly inclined that way….)?  NO.  After handing out numbers at 7 am the registrar went back to see who would get in & upon her return announced we were IN – ALL THREE!!!  Insert Happy (albeit tired) Dance Here.

There were a million ways God worked to get the kids into this program where I feel so strongly they are supposed to be, but here are the highlights:  I looked into the program four days before open house (having no idea about the open house or the school or the camp out) and was told about the open house when I emailed, at the open house I fell in love with the school and felt sure this was where God wanted us, at the open house I learned there was a “we really don’t recommend you camping out” policy which meant every Type A parent in the room would be camping out (news to me), I met a fellow triplet mom there that had helpful guidance, I had every sweet prayer friend praying that things fell into place, I got some inside intel, Bray and I just HAPPENED to go look at the school camp out site at the exact time we needed to so that we would beat the other camper by FIVE minutes, and I could go on and on.  I don’t have concert tickets, nor the latest flat screen t.v., but boy do I have peace of mind about the fall.

Do they let you camp out to get your kids into the actual Harvard?  And if so, will someone tell me when to start standing in line?

Jeremiah 29 – 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. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.
Psalm 26 – For I have always been mindful of your unfailing love and have lived in reliance on your faithfulness.
Isaiah 25 – LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago.

Well, it’s Friday which means Flashback Fridays – at least for the summer as I work to pound out these books.  Today’s installment was written on November 2, 2010, and was one of my marriage posts entitled, Boot Camp – On the Track and at Home.  I hope it resonates with you today.  Have a great weekend.

So this week I began my SECOND month of boot camp.  Let me start with two important facts.  I hate mornings.  I hate exercise.  This is terrible I realize but it is reality.  However, for some bizarre reason, last month I committed to a boot camp near my house that begins at 5 am.  I’ve lost nine pounds.  AND……..I actually ran the 3 reps of 400 meters w/sit ups and wall balls for our Monday work out that we benchmark against at the end of the month.  That is huge.  At the beginning of October I could only do the 200 meter reps.  But one of the trainers said something that stuck, and really pushed me to this new threshold – pain is temporary, quitting is forever.  

So I’ve decided to apply that slogan to the boot camp at home too.  And in fact, any woman of faith could apply that to her marriage when the going gets tough.  I have been madly in love with my husband for almost seven years and married nearly five.  But if a year of triplets doesn’t provide stressors on a marriage, I don’t know what would.  And while this has been an amazing year filled with daily delight at seeing the new things unfolding before our children’s eyes as they learn and develop, it has also been a hard one as our marriage has to mature to a new level.  And during the fights, and the fall out, I think it’s important to remember that pain is temporary, quitting is forever.  

God is a big fan of marriage (healthy marriages – none of this applies if you are being abused).  And He’s a big fan of them surviving.  AND THRIVING.  These marriages He designs for us are not marriages on life support.  Jesus’ first miracle was at a wedding – He wanted to be part of this precious celebration!  (John 2)  God tells us in Genesis “it is not good for man to be alone,” and in I Corinthians that, “For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman; and all things originate from God.”   Plus He repeatedly uses marriage as a metaphor for His relationship with us.  (Isaiah, Hosea, and more…) He wouldn’t draw that picture for us if He hadn’t designed marriage as a perfect union.  Lucky for me.  

Mark 10: 6-9: Jesus says “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” 

Pain is temporary; quitting is forever.

I am in the middle of writing three books.  One for the ABA on leadership for women.  Two for me.  A funny parenting book and a book about how our worth, regardless of the good or bad feedback we get from the world, only comes from Christ. 

As a result, I’m in writing overload.  So for the summer I’m introducing “Flashback Fridays.”  A look at some of my older blog posts, some of which were written before I even told anyone I had a blog.  I began writing in October 2010, when the kids were one, and wrote about faith, family and some really random stuff.  Today’s is one of my most random, but also one of my favorites, because this really is how I think.  It’s from December 2010.  It was titled, Banshees (and thank you Grey’s Anatomy).  Here you go, enjoy & happy Memorial Day weekend!

So I was going to attempt to describe what occurred over the course of Christmas weekend with my 14 month old triplets entering their first running around simultaneously phase which happened to coincide with our stay at the VERY non-baby proofed family farm house in Louisiana. I felt the best way to describe the experience was to say they were running around all weekend like banshees. I don’t know if your family uses this expression but I grew up with it – for example, my mom would say that my brother ran around the house “like a banshee.”

But before I posted my hilarious story for the blogosphere I thought it might be prudent to actually look up the word banshee & figure out what the heck a banshee is and why my mom used it. Well, it turns out it’s this pretty terrible Irish mythological creature who was an omen of death and wailed. Somehow this word made it into the English lexicon as urban slang for nutty behaviour. Seriously? This is all I could think – seriously? How the heck did my little momma, wife and daughter of a minister, end up using this pretty creepy term to describe hyperactive children’s behaviour? I certainly have no interest in using it in my jargon anymore.

This, in my streams of consciousness mentality (which I will not subject you to often because it truly is a train wreck of an experience), led me to think – why was my first thought, “Seriously?” In fact, my first thought was “seriously?” at least a dozen times this weekend. Freely given parenting advice from the in-laws – “seriously, have you had 14 mo old triplets?” My husband deciding after the first day at the farm we’d leave earlier than we’d originally planned – “seriously, what do you think I’ve been telling you about taking toddling triplets to a very uncontained space?” My youngest laughing so hard during his Christmas Eve bath that he literally laughed the poop right out of himself – “seriously, you are freakin’ hysterical!” Quickly followed up with, “seriously, on top of everything now I have to disinfect all our bath toys and bathtub?”

This led me to my above-titled gratitude for Grey’s Anatomy. If you are not a fan of the show, then you probably don’t utter “seriously” in every other thought you have during the day. Even my mom (also a fan) says it all the time. What did we do before Grey’s Anatomy? What word could possibly appropriately capture that emotion if Meredith Grey had not popularized the term, “seriously?” I mean, seriously, what word did I use – I guess I used “really.” “Really – have you had 14 mo old triplets?” Do you see what I mean.  This does not have the same ring AT ALL! What else could we use? My mind is a blank. This term is absolutely PERFECT for almost every single emotion that you need to begin with an emphatic punctuation.

So drop the use of the term banshee and start using seriously if you don’t already use it regularly. Except, now what will we replace the term banshee with? “Running around like a _________…..” “Screaming like a ____________…..” Maybe I’ll write the creators of Grey’s and see if they can come up with a term for that too.