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  • When Churches Silently Spread Hate

    I’m so afraid that the church – the broad, nationwide collection of believers who amass to worship and grow – has contributed to a society where wrong is ignored and people are marginalized and hate is fanned into flame. Not in sermons preached from the pulpit, necessarily, and not in words from hate-mongering pastors, but in the quietly obvious lack of love and acceptance and true ministering to souls whose default is sin.
    We are all messed up people, sinners in need of redemption, and we all have an equally deep need for the mercy of the Savior who passionately loves us and completely forgives us. But in looking at the church, it’s often hard to see that we messed up people are equal and that the church loves us all as equally as the One we worship does. 
    The church, I’m afraid, doesn’t reflect Christ. The church, I’m afraid, reflects the racism and classicism and sexism of its society.

    I have spent years worshiping in churches where every member looked just like me. White, middle class, steady job and active 401k. I have worshiped in churches where people whisper if a black man walks in and are offended more by a person’s clothing choices than the hypocrisy in their own judgment. I have worshiped in churches who marginalize the downtrodden instead of lifting them like brothers, who develop programs to benefit their country club atmospheres and leave the hungry starving in the streets. If the world has diversity, how can the church not? If Jesus loved everyone, how can we refuse?
    Praise God I now worship in a church where I don’t only see myself reflected. I worship with brothers and sisters whose lives look nothing like mine, with people who spent years living in prisons, with people who understand that grace really is amazing and really is for everyone.
    It has taken me a long time to realize that perhaps we have created an image of God who is nothing like the One who is. We worship a God who thinks like us and looks like us and makes us comfortable in the sameness of our pews, when the real God, the true God of the faith we ought to profess is saddened at the narrow-mindedness of our homogeneous gatherings and outraged at our disregard of the command to love all his people.  
    The news today saddens me. Another black man gunned down by white cops. More white people suggesting he must have deserved it. Another community asking when it will end.
    Church, what will be our answer? Will we love, or will we judge? The two are mutually exclusive. A father is dead, a family is mourning, and I have seen people suggesting he got what he deserved – these words coming out of the mouths of those who will “worship” on Sunday. Don’t fall into the trap, church. Call what is wrong, wrong, and shower love on hurting people. Do what Christ would do. Anything else is contrary to what you profess.
    I wasn’t there when Alton Sterling was shot, and I don’t know all that happened. But what I do know is enough to be angry, saddened, and burdened. The church’s only move in this situation is to love – to show compassion, to be a voice for the voiceless, and to shine light where darkness reigns. Darkness reigns in the world, but let’s refuse to let it reign in us. Let’s be the church Jesus would recognize, not a church worshiping a created god of sameness and silent hate. 

  • The Value of an Unscheduled Summer

    Every morning, my daughter wakes up and immediately asks, “What are we going to do today?” (She’s the curious one in the family, the one who must be in the know. My son never asks – we can be driving down the interstate, halfway to our destination, before he wonders where we’re going and what we’re doing. Their personalities could not be more different.)
    Listen, I don’t fault her for wanting to know. When you’re the shortest one in the house, at the mercy of the licensed drivers and decision makers, it’s only natural to be curious about what’s coming next. But this summer, the question “what are we going to do today” has come to mean something entirely different.
    And I despise it.
    It means, “Mom, what fun, exciting, thrill-seeking, never-done-before activity have you spent weeks planning (and a small fortune on) for us to do?” 
    Here’s the thing. I don’t subscribe to the theory that my job as a mother is to make my children’s every waking moment magical. Yeah, I want them to have fun and enjoy the relaxation that summer brings, BUT. I refuse to spend every moment of my life in a carefully choreographed dance of “entertain the children” and “spend vast amounts of money on experiences they won’t really appreciate.”
    I’ve got stuff to do. 
    Plus, I just want to lay on the couch and read a book. The children have rooms full of books and a playroom full of toys and a yard full of trees and sticks. They can invent their own fun. What ever happened to that kind of summer? 
    You know what I remember about being a kid? Playing capture the flag with the neighborhood kids. Hiding treasures in the knotholes of trees in our woods. Catching lightning bugs on hot summer nights. I distinctly remember roller-skating over sheets of bubble wrap on our driveway. I don’t remember my mom dressing us in expensive coordinating outfits, schlepping us to an unbelievable list of activities planned for each day. 
    Mom did her thing – laundry, cleaning up messes, yelling at us to close the door – and we did our thing. You know what was amazing about being a child in the ’80s? We were allowed to get bored. Our parents didn’t feel like failures if we complained there was nothing to do. They just told us to go find something. They knew the value of little humans figuring out how to entertain themselves. (They either knew it or just didn’t care that we weren’t entertained. In either case, we could learn a thing or two from our old-school parents. Their lives didn’t revolve around whether or not their offspring were content.) 
    Nobody back then threw a tablet in front of our faces if we started whining, nor did they meticulously arrange our enviable social lives. (Side note – they also didn’t throw a tablet or phone or any other electronic device in front of our faces if we couldn’t sit still at a meal. They took us in the bathrooms and whipped our tails and we learned to sit still at a meal. As a result, we can now eat with other human beings and have conversations like civilized people. Thank goodness there was no technology when I was a child. But I digress.)
    We played in the summer. End of story. If we got bored, we figured it out. We took one big trip, if we were lucky. Our parents weren’t our cruise directors, and we’re better today for it.

    My years as a high school teacher have proved to me that children who are the center of their universe and whose entertainment has been the only purpose of their lives ultimately turn out to be poorly adjusted young adults who legitimately have trouble doing anything for themselves. They struggle in relationships with adults, they struggle in relationships with peers, and they struggle in academics. Nothing about a child being the highly entertained center of his own universe is a good thing in the long run. 
    What’s more, if we teach children (explicitly or even accidentally) that life is only about fun, we will have a generation of people pursuing only their own desires. Sacrifice will be an antiquated idea, and hard workers will be hard to find. 
    This summer, we will have fun. We’ll go to the lake and go to the pool, see movies and eat icees, and we’ll take day trips and go to the beach. We’ll watch fireworks and play in the sprinkler and catch lightning bugs. But we’ll also get bored. We’ll do chores and clean the house and probably have some arguments. Summer will be fun, but it won’t just be an expensive attempt to prevent boredom. It won’t revolve solely around what the kids will find entertaining, and it won’t always look great on social media. But maybe our summer will help, in a small way, the kids be better people.

  • For the Mom Who Feels Like the Worst

    The other night, I had myself a little hissy fit.

    The house was empty except for me, so I had a good cry – the kind where it’s hard to breathe and you make strange, unintelligible noises.

    Why?

    Motherhood.

    All I could see in those moments were my failures and shortcomings, the problems I face and the circumstances that overwhelm.

    My mothering life is likely different from yours. I am divorced and remarried, so custody arrangements and visitation schedules, especially during the summer, are inescapable truths. Our schedule is a finely tuned instrument requiring coordination and calendars, planning and production. And though it looks nice and neat on the calendar, it is its own special hell for me.

    It means that I, a mommy, am sometimes without my children. Those blue cells on the calendar represent nights, and during the summer, weeks, without those who grew within me. I cannot explain the agony.

    My tears were set off by a sweet night with my sisters. We – and their children – met for ice cream. But my own children weren’t there, and it hurt. I just wanted to be “normal,” yelling at my kids not to get too close to the road and cleaning up their ice cream drips on the picnic table. But my life is different, and I was reminded that night I cannot change what I did not choose. It’s a hard lesson to learn.

    You might not understand the specific struggles I face, but your mothering has its own special hell, too, I’m sure.

    We mothers all want to do a good job, whatever that actually means. We want our children to feel loved and secure, to have all they need, to be prepared to confidently leave us when that time comes. But none of these desires comes with a clear road map, and each day we mother requires us to navigate a path we’ve never walked down before. Each child we mother requires re-learning what we thought we already knew. Each moment requires patience and presence when we sometimes just want to escape.

    Mothering, in every form, is really hard, and it’s a task you never really know if you’re doing well. It’s a long-term investment with short-term agony.

    Whatever it is that makes you feel less-than as a mom today, know this: you have everything you need to be the mom your kids need. They were given to you because you are equipped to mother their hearts and raise them to be the adults they are intended to be.

    Your circumstances might be incredibly difficult, and your life might be the exact opposite of how you wish it were. From a human perspective, the list of what you lack might be greater than what you have. You may lie in bed at night replaying all you did wrong, but there’s always one thing you do right – you love them with every beat of your heart.

    Give yourself grace today, mom. No, you are not perfect. You are far from it, and you fail in many ways. There is always more of you that’s needed, and there’s never enough of you present. But none of that means you are a failure as a mom. None of that means you should throw in the towel and quit giving what you can. You are not perfect, but you are perfectly capable of being the mother you are supposed to be.

    Maybe you, too, need to have a good hissy fit. A good cry can cleanse the soul. Cry it out, let it out, and then pick yourself up. Mothering was never intended to be rainbows and butterflies. It was intended to be the hard work of raising strong, intelligent, determined people who know why and by whom they were created.

    You can do this, mom.

    Get back at it.

  • Why I’m Quitting Teaching

    After nine years in a classroom, I’m leaving education. 
    I will walk out of my empty room on Tuesday with books packed away and memories stored in my heart, leaving behind hundreds of adolescents who walked through the door looking for what they didn’t know they needed.
    Honestly, I don’t know if I gave them anything.
    I tried really hard, that’s for sure. I wrote curriculum and read professional books and took classes to get better.
    I read adolescent novels and included the classics and tried to teach them some grammar.
    But as far as what they got? Who really knows. That’s the agonizing peculiarity of education. You never really know how you did, even with test scores and data being thrown all around. You never really know if you made an impact that will be remembered beyond the last day of school. You never really know.
    I sure don’t.
    If you’re looking for a diatribe against the American education system, you won’t find it here. I have a lot of thoughts on our system and a lot I think needs to be changed, but I’ll keep those thoughts inside until the time is right to voice them.
    Here’s what I do know: I can’t stay.
    Not because I hate teaching or because I believe the system is irreparably broken. Not because I’m tired of the kids or frustrated with changing standards.
    No, I’m leaving because God has made it clear it’s time for me to do something else. I’ve tried to help my students uncover their passions, and I’ve encouraged them to follow their hearts. I guess I’m finally taking my own advice.
    I’m going to be a writer.
    It sounds so foreign to my ear to say it out loud, like I might as well be saying I’m joining the circus to become a clown. But I am going to write, so that makes me a writer, I guess.
    The Lord awoke a desire in me about four years ago to share His heart and redemptive power through my words, and every day since then has pushed me to this place, the place where I confirm my belief in His call and my belief in His provision.
    There’s a lot I don’t know yet, like how exactly to be a writer. (A minor detail, I’m sure). I’m just going to write what He reveals, and I’ll share how I can. I don’t know how to operate without a bell schedule releasing me to use the bathroom, and I don’t know how to stop pinning lesson plan ideas while I’m scrolling through Pinterest.
    I don’t know, but I’ll learn. I’m moving from being the experienced teacher to a novice student again, but I’ve never been more excited (and thoroughly terrified). A part of me I didn’t know was sleeping has now been awakened, and it’s as if I’m seeing everything through new eyes. I’ve come to a place where I can’t not do what He has clearly called and confirmed. I feel, like Esther, I was made for such a time as this. It’s now or never. Trust and obey. Look and still leap.
    Some people have said to me, “I admire your courage!” Truthfully, I’m not feeling particularly courageous most days. Often I feel selfish and confused and overwhelmed and simply amazed that God would even ask me to do anything for Him.
    But He did, so I am. And I’m encouraging you to do the same.
    For those of you protecting a dream in your heart that you’re afraid will never be a reality… 

    Keep dreaming. 

    Keep praying. 

    Keep practicing. 
    It may take years, but if you beg God to take the desire away and it only comes through stronger, you’ll know. You’ll know He heard you, and you’ll know that eventually, in His time, He will set everything in motion. He did for me, and I’m trusting He will continue.
    So for now, I ask for your prayers. Pretty soon, I’ll be asking for your stories! I long to give you words you need to hear, and there would be no higher honor than for me to write about what you need. Words have power and stories give life, and the new focus of my days is to share power-imparting and life-giving stories with you. I think the teacher in me will always be around, sharing where I’ve been and what I know with those who need it. I pray my words will, somehow, give you something you need. 

  • Why Is Being a Woman Still a Liability?

    I just don’t get it.
    It’s the year 2016, people. Twenty. Sixteen.
    And yet here we are, with being female still being a hardship. A liability. A handicap, if you will.
    Today, the home page of a major news organization carried the headline, “Cheerleading Team Nixes Tryout Tips After Outcry.”
    Here’s  what this university – this institution of higher learning – values in its representatives: a “beachy glow.” Hair with “volume.” And don’t leave out the all-important “false lashes.” In other words, everything opposite of who we women really are when we wake up in the morning. Don’t lose sight that the girl in the picture is also blonde and skinny. Two more traits that make a girl have the valued “look.”
    Makes me want to puke.
    This week, I had a man suggest that my skirt was too short. It hit my knees. My knees. A man with whom I’ve had maybe two conversations in my life. A man who was bothered by the fact that my scandalous and I suppose seductive kneecaps were showing. Excuse me? First, who do you think you are? The clothes police? You have no legitimate reason to discuss anything with me, most especially the length of my skirt. Which hit my knees. Second, be glad I was too shocked to say or do what later occurred to me to say and do. We’d both be in worse shape than we are now.
    This week, too, I read that a presidential candidate said another presidential candidate is only viable because she has the “women’s card. She has got nothing else going.” Here’s the truth. I’m not a fan of either of these people, but for real? The only thing she’s got – the only reason people are voting for her – is her gender? The implication is that we women are so uninformed, unintelligent, and thoughtless that we only cast votes for women because they’re women? Further, the only value this woman herself has is her gender? She has done nothing in her life except flaunt her chromosomal makeup?
    Give me a break. Her accomplishments, even if I disagree with them, are in spite of her gender, not because of it. I guarantee she’s had to work twice as hard to prove her worth because of people who think her only worth is in her beachy glow and false lashes.
    I’m just so sick of the double standard. I’m tired of seeing women – both those I know and those I don’t – being treated as inferior because of their femininity. I’m tired of being told I can’t because I’m a woman and then seeing someone who can just because he’s a man. I’m tired of women with voices being called pushy and women with opinions being called loud. I’m tired of the assumption that I’m weak and ignorant. I’m tired of my value lying in what I can cook and how I can decorate and if I got my body back after baby.
    We women are not accessories. We are not stupid. We are certainly not inferior. What year will it be when we as a society finally realize this?

  • To You, As You Test, From Your Teacher

    I saw your hands tremble as you reached for the test. Your face displayed confidence, but your hands showed your heart. 
    You’re nervous, and I get it. You’ve worked hard and studied often, and you just want this test to show it. 
    To you, right now, this score is everything. The score represents you, on a 10 point scale. It is your worth, from A to F. It is what matters, written in red.
    AnswerGridExam,Test
    school.familyeducation.com
    But sweet child, it’s really not. It’s really not everything. It’s far from your worth, and even coming from your teacher, it’s not what matters. It’s just a test.
    What matters is what I’ve seen in you and from you during these weeks. The attention you’ve given, the details you’ve pored over, and the effort you’ve given. What really matters is the character you’ve shown as you’ve readied for the test and the perseverance you’ve had as you pursued what I taught.
    This test? It’s just a snapshot. It’s just a one-time indication of how you did one time you answered some questions. That’s it. That’s all. Nothing more.
    When you get your score back, I pray it’s what you wanted. But if not? It’s OK, because you – the value of who you are – could never be captured in one little number. You are more than an A and more than an F. You are a diligent chaser of the best you can be, and when scores come back and papers are filed, that’s how I’ll remember you. That is who you really are. Remember it.

  • This Life Thing is Hard

    I want it all to be easier.
    I want to wake up in the morning, choose my path, and do what I love.
    I want the decisions to be obvious, the money to be readily available, the children to be always obedient.
    I want the fighting to stop, the politicians to be good, the heart not to hurt.
    I want to float through life, not fight through it.
    I want Eden. I want Heaven. I want them here.
    But.
    Here is fallen. Here is hard. Here hurts.
    Here, people betray those they pledge to love. Here, bodies break and brains deteriorate. Here, children die and hearts break.
    Here, this life thing is hard.
    But, mercifully, here is not hopeless. Here, in the hardship, is Jesus. Here, in the hurt, the Holy Spirit intercedes. Here, in the hostility, is God.
    This week, especially, the hard and hurt have been loud. This week, all around, I see pain and hear, “Why?” Here, this week, I want what isn’t, and I want what is to change.
    Yet in the hard and in the hurt, light is shining. Faith is growing. Love is abundant.
    And for today, for right now, that’s enough.

  • A High Price to Pay

    At 36,000 feet, you can clearly see what’s not visible from the ground. Miles above the surface of the planet, everything looks different, and with no effort on your part, perspective shifts and your eyes see what was once hidden.

    Difficulties are kind of like being 36,000 feet in the air.

    You need to understand that I hate to fly. Hate. It. I have to be medicated and nearly crush my husband’s hand during takeoff and make people around me nervous that I’m going to lose my mind. I once nearly hyperventilated on a flight from Miami, and on my last flight from Chicago, my shirt was stained with sweat rings. There is no place I hate worse than the cabin of an airplane. My most fervent prayers have been as my flights taxi towards takeoff. I pray that the rivets will hold, the crew ate a nutritious breakfast, the fuel is untainted, the tires were manufactured properly, fellow passengers have only the best intentions… No area is untouched by my prayer life when it comes to planes.

    So the beauty of those pictures? There’s a high price to pay for them.

    There’s a high price to pay for all beauty in life, though, isn’t there?

    No one invites difficulties or welcomes them with open arms. We pray against them and do what we can to avoid them. We want smooth sailing, life to continue as we know it, and comfort to surround us. What we think we want is safety and familiarity – the absence of hardships. What I’ve learned, though, and what God continues to show me is that safety and familiarity – the absence of hardships – lead only to complacency and a distorted perception of life.

    We need the valleys of life to see the 36,000 foot view. The logic of God makes no sense to our humanity.

    It has been in the pit – and because of it – that I have even begun to understand the glory of my redemption. It has been through the worst that I have been able to smile at the best. When life has been smooth sailing here on the surface of this planet, I have lost my desperation for my Savior and my reverence for his role. The hardest days of my life have lifted me beyond what ordinary eyes can see and have shown me the view from Up There, if only for a moment. From the depths of a depraved world, mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. 
    To see with eyes like Christ, you might have to suffer as He did. To gain his perspective, you might need to share his pain.

    And to see from 36,000 feet, you’ll probably need to fly on a plane.

  • Your Permission Slip

    Sometimes we adults need permission just like children, so here’s my permission slip for your grown-up heart.

    It’s ok to feel what you’re feeling right now.

    I’ve been struggling lately with a lot of big feelings, and rather than lean into them and learn what they’re trying to teach me, I’ve been running from them. Ignoring them. Denying that they’re there.

    But in the darkness and silence, those few minutes alone in an empty car, they cry out to me. They call my name and catch my breath and demand to be noticed. So I’m trying. It’s so much easier for me, the one who flees rather than fights, to shut them out and pretend them away. But all that has left me with is unresolved sadness, unreconciled hurt, and unmet longings.

    So here I am, trying to listen to what my heart needs me to hear. And I’m giving you permission to do the same. I’m also giving you permission to tell God what you feel. Yes, He knows, but I’m learning that He wants us to trust Him enough to take it to Him. All of it. Those big feelings, where you feel alone and afraid and like He loves everyone but you? Take them. Those feelings that say you’ll never be good enough; those feelings that say He won’t do for you what He has done for others? Take them. Those feelings that say “I’m spinning my wheels and I’m on a never-ending treadmill and my life is adding up to one big nothing?” Take them. He can handle them – and handle them, He can. When we stuff them down and pretend they’re not there and smile like everything’s ok? That’s not handling them.

    Honesty is the first step. Don’t ask me how I know.

    So. You, with the welling tears and the heart beating fast? Feel those feelings. Give their darkness some light. Give their secret places some visibility. Give yourself some relief. Feel them, then heal.

    You have my permission.

  • I Saw You

    Hey, October teacher.

    I saw you stumbling into the lounge this morning, well before you were paid to be there, fumbling for quarters to get a caffeine fix.

    You is broke. You is tired. You is a teacher. So true at the end of the school year!:
    housetalkn.com

    I saw the papers spilling out of your bag, the ones you graded too late last night because you promised you would.

    I saw that silly Homecoming week get-up you wore to promote school spirit, and I also saw you tutoring that student from 4th period because she just can’t understand how to multiply polynomials yet.

    I saw you – see you – and wanted you to know.

    I also want you to know I understand. October is a hard month in this line of work. The new of August has worn off, the exultation of Christmas break is far away, and you’re smack dab in the middle of it all. You’re in the meat of the material, the midst of the semester. You’re in the meetings and the grading and the planning – and you’re wondering if any of it makes a difference.

    Rest assured. It does.

    I know in the midst of it all you start losing sight of the forest for the trees, and you focus so greatly on the details that you miss the big picture. Those kids you’re planning for, grading for, working for? They trust you. They listen to you, they want to please you, and they depend on you. Whether you realize it or not, you have become part of their stories. Years from now, when they speak of whatever grade you teach, they’ll speak of you. You and they are connected forever, and everything you’re doing now is impacting who they’ll become.

    Don’t forget that.

    Yes, I know exams and testing and evaluations are coming, and I know your calendar is overflowing with to-do’s. I know your bag is full again today, and tomorrow’s hours already seem too short.

    But today, if you’re feeling the weight of it all, can I invite you – just for a moment – to forget the lists and remember the love? For just a moment, don’t think of all you need to do, but all you need to be. Don’t look at the grades, but remember their faces. Remind yourself of what matters, and make the right adjustments. Go back to how you felt the day before school started, and recapture just a smidge of that excitement and anticipation. Tomorrow is a new day – a fresh day – the first day of something new. Make it what it needs to be. You’re a teacher, and you have that power.