I'm Just Sayin'

That Awkward Phase

2011-10-09T16:47:00.000-07:00

We've all heard it: "Oh, bless her heart; she's going through that awkward phase." Knowing glances and head-nods follow such a comment, usually, as all eyes fall upon said awkward child, often a mess of braces and gangly limbs and overgrown feet. Were you her? Did you overhear those comments and pray for a trapdoor to appear in the floor beneath you and swallow you up?

The Awkward Phase occurs at different times in a woman's life, I think. For some, it hits with puberty and erodes the self-confidence for three or four years before giving way to a rebound of teenage promiscuity. Or for others, maybe it swoops in during the high school years when there never seem to be any seats left at the "cool table" in the cafeteria, leaving you hunched over a brown paper bag or styrofoam tray surrounded by freaks and geeks: your people. It seems Awkward Phases are as unique and individual as the women and girls they strike.

My own Awkward Phase had its unfortunate genesis at age three and became tangible and obvious around age six. Prior to age six, I was (quite frankly) rather adorable. But the cuteness factor wore off around the sixth year of life (See archived post about this tragedy here: http://jenamorrow.blogspot.com/search?q=the+day+the+cuteness+died) and gave way to clumsiness and self-consciousness and about 29 years' worth of blurted-out faux pas I wish I could take back. That's right--29 years. See, I don't think I've ever quite outgrown my own personal awkward phase. Oops.

I still trip over my own feet and have very little awareness of my appendages (constantly bruised elbows and hipbones attest to this), and I still wish I could retract approximately 40% of the things I say, the emails I send, the comments I leave on people's Facebook statuses. Basicially, I second-guess everything I do -- or, wait, maybe I don't. Maybe that's an exaggeration. (See what I mean?)

And now that I'm turning 35 (how the heck did that happen?) in a couple of months, I've decided that maybe the Awkward Phase isn't going to wear off at all. Maybe it's who I am. Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that this world is not my home and was never meant to be all that comfortable. Or maybe I'm just my own brand of weird -- just like you are your own brand of weird. Maybe it's totally normal to brush my teeth in the shower and sleep with my childhood blankie and habitually sing harmony along to annoying jingles on the radio and listen to Christmas carols in August just because they make me happy. Maybe you second-guess yourself just as much as I do and you just don't blog about it. Maybe the fact that I do is just part of my weirdness and maybe I should just keep on truckin'. As a woman said in a group I led last week, "Jus' do you, baby. Jus' do YOU."

I thought that by the time I reached thirty-five, I'd be The Woman I Always Wanted To Be. Here's a thumbnail of her: Long legs and a graceful stride, delicate features and a certain uber-feminine grace, and everyday is a good hair day and her house always smells like clean laundry and vanilla cake, and her children respect her always and her husband finds her lovable and endearing, and she is both professional and domestic all at once, and she is respected in her community and in her chosen field, and you can just tell that's she's been with Jesus . . .

Wait. That last part -- maybe . . . Maybe it's enough. Maybe that last part erases a multiude of "awkward." Maybe it eclipses all the other qualities, anyway. Yes . . .

Maybe we are who we are -- broken, weird, strange, unique, imperfect, wayward, wind-tossed sojourners in a land that is far from our home. Maybe we don't outgrow that awkward phase until we are reuinted with our Maker, made complete in His arms, clicked in like a puzzle piece that fits just so. And maybe when I am feeling especially awkward, it's because I've spent a little too much time away from Him . . .

I don't know: it was just a thought. I'm already second-guessing it.

By Popular Demand: The Best of Jadenisms!

2011-09-16T08:35:00.000-07:00

Okay, people, you've been asking for it . . .

For over three years now, my Facebook friends and followers have been encouraging me to write a book of "Jadenisms" -- quips and quotes from my sharp-tongued son, Jaden. I found a way to search archives of my Facebook statuses dating back to 2009, and compiled the following list both for posterity and for your amusement. As for me, I get to live with this kid; my biggest challenge is knowing when to laugh and when to wash his mouth out with soap.

Without further ado . . .

The Best of Jadenisms, 2009 through 2012:

"Mom, you're pretty. (pause) No, I mean it, you're actually kind of pretty. I don't know why guys aren't just gagging all over you." (age 6)

"Mom, can I have some strawberry milk?" (Me: How do you ask politely?) "Can I have some strawberry milk . . . if it be thy will?"

Jaden to Spike (the cat), who was freaked out by fireworks on July 4, 2009: "Aw, don't worry, Spikey. Relax, boy . . . it was just a bomb."

(Talking to himself in the mirror, age 6, as he wiggled his first loose tooth: "You got this, Jaden. Just grab and pull. Gotta take this like a man, damn it." (I really can't remember how I disciplined him for the swearing . . . )

Stylist told Jaden he had the thickest hair she'd ever seen on a seven-year-old boy. Jaden replied, "Oh, don't be so melon-dramatic."

Jena to Jaden: "Get your fingers outta the peanut butter jar!" Anne to Jaden: "Go get a spoon and I'll make you a peanut butter lollipop like Pastor Clem likes to eat." Jaden to Anne: "Miss Anne, I need more women like you in my life."

Second grade math homework assignment asked the students to write a math story problem and show the equation. Jaden wrote "Mom + Dad = Baby." He likes to think outside the box.

Jena to 7-year-old Jaden: "Please take the garbage out and put your bike away." (Jaden rolls eyes.) Jena to Jaden: "Remember, I let you live in my belly, rent-free, for nine months..." Jaden to Jena: "Fine, mother. I'll go get my checkbook."

Jaden to Jena after putting up their Christmas tree, 2009: "Mom, I hope this doesn't make me sound too girly, but can we just turn off all the lights and lay under the Christmas tree and just . . . talk about our feelings?"

Jena, while making vegetable soup, said to Jaden, "I wish you would be my taste tester. This soup needs something." Jaden replied, "Mom, I'm not gonna taste that soup, but I will tell you what it needs: meat."

Another one for the books... Jena: "Do you understand why you were sent to your room?" Jaden: "Because you have no patience today."

I was just torturing Jaden by pinching his cheek, and he yelled, "Help! This is kid adultery!" (I, uh, think he meant 'child abuse.')

Me: "Argh; she left my hair longer on one side than the other." Jaden: "Welcome to the real world, Mom. Nothing in life is perfect."

Jaden woke up singing "Blessed Be the Name of the Lord", so I asked him what he had been dreaming about. He told me: Darth Sideous, dolphins, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Of course.

My parents have been divorced for 28 years. Tonight is my dad's birthday celebration, and Jaden told my mom she should go because "after all, he's your long lost husband."

Jaden (singing): "I could really use a wish right now..." Me: "What would you wish for?" Jaden: "That this would be an all-girls school but they'd let me in anyway."

Jaden: "Mom, can the average man lick his own armpit?" Me: "Ummm... I don't think so." Jaden: "I knew it; I'm talented!"

Jaden: "I would never want to be a teacher. You have to get to school at like 6AM to grade papers, plus you never get to pee. Mrs. Deeter literally NEVER pees. It's freaky."

Me: "So, what goes on at a boys' sleepover?" Jaden: "Can't tell; it's part of the Guy Code." Me: "What's the Guy Code?" Jaden: "Can't say; that's classified information."

Me; "How was your day?" Jaden: "Good." Me: "What did you learn?" Jaden: "Nothing." Me: "What did you play in gym?" Jaden: "Mom, I get it; you care about my day. I'm just tired of speaking."

Jaden and Jackson are wrestling upstairs. Me to Jaden: "Please don't kill each other." Jaden to me: "Is it okay if we badly injure one another?"

Jaden: "Okay, from now on, we're all gonna get along and stop arguing. So let's just, I don't know... pretend to be other people."

Jaden: "I mean, what if there is no Santa? What if all those presents are just dropped off by some guy named, like, Bob Shinkenheimer?"

Just had to have the Great Inevitable Santa Talk with Jaden. His response: "That explains why I never get coal even though I'm bad every year!"

Jaden, at bedtime on the eve of back-to-school: "Not... Feeling so well... I don't think... I'm gonna pull through..." *Falls to floor*

Jaden: "I can't go to school today. I'm not throwing up anymore, but I think I have Brownchitus." *fake cough*

Me: "Jaden, you are not leaving this house until you brush those teeth." Jaden: "Come ON, Mom. I promise I won't smile at anyone today. No one will know."

So, my work is hiring RNs, and offering a referral bonus. Mom suggested a friend of ours, but I said "she hasn't nursed in a while" -- to which Jaden replied, "Not from the looks of things; she doesn't even have kids!" *slaps forehead*

Jaden: "Alexis' sister Alyssa almost broke my thumb today. I should have told the teacher, but I figured that might ruin my chances with Alexis. So I make sacrifices; big deal."

Jaden: "A teacher at my school had a baby two days ago. He's a boy and his name is Cameron. Or Henry. Definitely either Cameron or Henry."

Jaden: "What if we switched bodies while we were sleeping?" Me: "You wouldn't like it. You'd have to be a girl." Jaden: "Yeah, but YOU would have puberty all over again, so the joke's on you."

So the boy has Strep. When the doc told Jaders he was contagious, he goes, "Do I have to wear a cone on my head?"

Jaden: "I heard on TV that our president keeps giving Mexican people free stuff. I'M Mexican! I know I don't look like it, but geez, take a blood test!"

Jaden: "I saw a teacher from my school when we were in Target. She was looking at fancy dresses and holding a bra. My guess is she has a date with that special someone tonight. (Deep breath) Awwwwwkwarrrrd."

My kid was crabby today, but he just made an amends: "I know I was in a bad mood today. Sorry. I think I have boy PMS."

Got a letter in the mail informing me that Jaden has been accepted into the accelerated programs for math and language arts. His response: "Oh, great. Now I'm gonna have to think."

Jaden: "Mom, please have another baby, and make sure she's a girl." Me: "I tried to make sure you were a girl; didn't work." Jaden: "That's just cuz Dad is so hormonal."

My mom to Jaden the night before the dog was to be neutured: "Tomorrow morning is Toby's surgery." Jaden: "That's okay, Toby. Sooner or later, we'll all get our b---s cut off." (Um... WHAT?! Should I laugh or ground the kid?)

I'm trying to raise this boy into a proper young man. Y'all pray for me!

Top Ten Life Lessons I Learned (so far) Before Age 35

2011-09-14T16:15:00.000-07:00

10) People who say they don't care what people think about them are usually saying that because they are desperate for people to think that they don't care what people think about them.

9) If you are worried about what others are thinking of you, you can relax--because they are probably too self-absorbed to be thinking about you anyway.

8) Everyone you meet and everyone you know is going through something. So don't be a jerk.

7) There is no such thing as the perfect church, so stop looking. And if you do find the perfect church, don't become a member or you'll mess it up. God can work with imperfection; in fact, we give Him no other choice.

6) When it comes right down to it, relationships--with others, with God, with ourselves--are all that matter in this life. Everything else is just details.

5) Never take life too seriously. No one gets out alive, anyway. Besides, if you are a Christ-follower, your life isn't even about you. It's about Him.

4) Never take yourself too seriously. Laughter can be lifesaving.

3) Smile at people. It shocks the heck outta most of 'em.

2) Take inventory of your blessings frequently. Anything and everything good that you have, embody, or experience came to you through God's hand. What if you woke up tomorrow with only those things that you thanked Him for today?

1) Prayer is the most powerful resource we have--and yet we usually resort to it last. That's kinda dumb.

Receiving Graciously 101

2011-08-28T14:00:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but I rather like the ring of the words "self-sufficient." They make me feel strong. Able. Invincible. Untouchable. If I am self-sufficient, I am self-sustaining. Self-reliant. Independent. Respectable.

Sounds a bit like the American Dream, doesn't it? We as a culture praise and esteem such qualities. We are a nation of self-proclaimed "self-made men." We are all about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- which is often interchangeable with self-sufficiency.

Here's the thing, though -- it's an illusion.

Who do you really know who is self-sufficient? Who is able to keep his own heart beating even one blip longer than his creator intends? Who is his own source, his own provider, his own wellspring of wealth? No one that I know. And yet I have aspired to this, and come to expect it from myself in the process.

Enter unforseen circumstances. Enter the crash of the housing market (and the industry that was making me appear so self-sufficient not too long ago). Enter the mysterious will and plan of God, whose ways I still grapple to understand -- and the mirage of my self-sufficiency, my arrogant needlessness, dissolves like salt in water.

I did the math recently; I am now living on $30,000 less annually than I earned four years ago. And I would love to tell you that, because of that, I have achieved a new level of humility and grown marvelously as a person. But the truth is, I remain prideful. And that fact becomes unavoidable when others offer me help.

Enter more unforseen circumstances -- opportunities to face my needs, and to admit I have them --and then, enter (one by one) a procession of God's people, whom He seems to have placed quite intentionally in my path for such a time as this. People offering prayer and support and friendship and assistance of all kinds. People showing up and saying "Remember the time you were there for me? Now it's my turn." Beautiful reciprocity, indeed.

If you are a prideful person steeped in guilt, you know the default response: "Oh, no, no, no. Thanks, but I can't accept this. Or that. Or anything at all. But thanks anyway." False humility. Leaves a bad taste in the mouth, doesn't it?

I'll let you in on what God is teaching me these days; I seem to be enrolled in an accelerated course in Receiving Graciously 101. Lesson One: do not turn away a gift (time, resources, a favor, etc) given in love and obedience to God. Ever try to give someone a present and had them shove it back in your face? Well, me either -- but if I had, I think it would hurt something terrible. I like to give people gifts; I wouldn't want anyone to rob me of that joy. Would you?

I'm learning what true humility looks like. In so many ways, it is not what I thought it was. And it turns out that receiving graciously is a great way to cast down pridefulness -- and, as a dear friend told me just yesterday, receiving graciously will enable us, later, to give graciously. After all, none of us can give what we don't have.

Need a more practical application? 1) Open mouth. 2) Insert pride. 3) Swallow.

Repeat as necessary. I know I will.

Signing Up for Heartache

2011-07-03T23:19:00.000-07:00

If I were to create a soundtrack to tell the story of my life, a lot of tracks would be courtesy of the late Rich Mullins, an amazing songwriter known by most for his magnum opus, "Awesome God." The man had a way of painting with lyrics, of telling every believer's tale of stubbornly wrestling with an almighty God -- and telling it so well that you almost wonder if he'd ever had a peek at your diary. Rich wrote a lot about human weakness. A few of my favorite lyrics:

We are frail, we are fearfully and wonderfully made / Forged in the fires of human passion, choking on the fumes of selfish rage / And with these our hells and our heavens so few inches apart / We must be awfully small, and not as strong as we think we are.

And another:

Well everybody used to tell me 'big boys don't cry' / But I've been around enough to know that that was the lie / That held back the tears in the eyes of a thousand prodigal sons . . .

Rich had learned a little something about himself in his brief 42 years on Earth: he had learned that he was dust, that he had a tender heart that broke all-too-easily -- and that God Himself had created him -- and all of us -- that way. Vulnerable to heartache, prone to tenderness. Our hearts were not created to mechanically or stoically endure the obstacle course of life; on the contrary, it seems God designed us to feel deeply, to have hearts of compassion for our fellow sojourners, and even (and sometimes I'm not thrilled about this part) to share in His sufferings.

When I was a teenager, new to this journey with Jesus, someone had given me a keychain that said "Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God." I proudly carried that keychain; I was willing to share in Christ's sufferings like a good girl -- and I wanted everyone to know it.

But I didn't have a clue what that meant.

Working in a treatment center, I find myself surrounded daily by "things that break the heart of God." Addiction. Depression. Grief and loss. Crippling anxiety. Unbelievable deception. People haunted by their past. And most tragically, people desperately striving to overcome their past and create a future -- apart from God. These women are His precious creation -- and I feel His passionate desire that they might also become His daughters. His holy heart breaks for them -- and my own seems to be following suit.

This past week, I've wept at work on more than one occasion -- and from time to time, I spend my commute home from work in tears and in prayer. I have had co-workers tell me that I'm going to need to "toughen up" if I'm going to stay in this field -- but then I look around me and see that the co-workers who seem to be making the greatest difference in people's lives are those who are not necessarily all that "toughened up" themselves. As my friend psychologist friend Allen has told me, "In this work, tears are professional." (Read some of Allen's blog archives here: http://www.christianpsychologisttalk.com/) And as my own counselor recently said to me, "May your heart never become hardened. You will pay the price not to have a hard heart -- but as Christians, we have the heart of God for others. So welcome appropriate emotion."

It isn't the easy way of doing things, mind you; I think learning to suck it up and stuff it down might make life appear a little less painful in the short-term. To pick a rose, you ask your hands to bleed. But in the long-term, we would miss out -- oh, God, would we miss out -- on experiencing the heart of Christ toward His creation. He is such a passionate lover of ragamuffins -- slow to anger, abounding in love and mercy, so crazy about us broken-down, bedraggled rascals that He gave His best even when we were at our worst. He knew what perfect love was capable of, and He saw us not only as we were, but as we would be. But, even knowing the end from the beginning, He wept. And He weeps each time we stray.

Toughen up? Yeah, it's tempting. Self-protection is always tempting. But if Jesus never saw fit to harden His heart toward the wounded and wayward, how could I possibly justify doing so myself?

So here I am, signing up for heartaches to come. But I believe I will continue to find that, as my heart breaks for the things that break the heart of God, I will know Him a little more and a little better with each new painful twinge of compassion. I'd be lying to say I'm jazzed about it. But I could carry that keychain much more honestly today.

Breathing Lessons

2011-06-24T23:45:00.000-07:00

There is a technique in choral singing called "stagger breathing", wherein the choir is able to sing long phrases of music without an audible break in the phrase for a breath, because singers of the same vocal part (sopranos, altos, et al) essentially take turns breathing; someone's voice is always filling in the blanks and representing that vocal part. The result is something of a sonic mirage: it sounds as if the choir never stops singing, even for a split second. It is continual sound -- ongoing music.

A couple years ago, I sang in an eight-voice vocal group for a church event at Christmas. We were singing "O Holy Night", acapella (sans accompaniment, for the non-musicians out there). If you're familiar with the song, you know that the musical phrases are written to be long and stretched and dynamic, with a great deal of arc and shape to them. Take an obvious breath in the middle of one of those gorgeous phrases, and you kill the song and ol' Adolphe Charles Adams turns over twice in his grave. Needless to say, we decided to "stagger our breathing."

Now, there's a certain amount of compassion and sensitivity required on the part of the vocalists in order to pull this technique off. There is no such thing as "every man for himself." For example, my friend Shauna and I were the two sopranos singing the melody line. In order to ensure that Shauna didn't run out of steam and fall into a lifeless heap on the stage beside me, I had to be sensitive to her body language, the timbre and tone of her voice, and her physiological requirement for oxygen. She, in turn, had to do me the same favor. Working together this way, side-by-side, with a purposeful, intentionally keen awareness of one another's moments of strength and weakness, we were able to compliment one another and empower one another to give the best of our voices (and ourselves) to the song. We were working separately -- and yet collaboratively - toward a common goal.

It's a pretty cool model of successful inter-dependent living, really. In a sense, it illustrates the way God has intended for human beings to "do life." In any close relationship -- that of best friends or partners or husband and wife -- there has to be a certain climate of give-and-take. The key, I would surmise, is that both partners should not generally be on the giving and taking end at the same time - or worse yet, all the time. And this, of course, is where the compassion and senstivity come into play.

We can do that, can't we? If Shauna and I, as singers, were able to be intentional enough about being sensitive to one another's condition to make pretty music, then surely we can carry that same principle with us into our non-musical endeavors like, say, life. Surely the integrity of our relationships is as important as the integrity of a song. And maybe getting along with one another and enabling one another to be the best that we can be, so that we can give the best we have to give, is as elementary as learning to breathe.

Mercy for Chronic Sinners: What a Concept

2011-05-18T01:09:00.001-07:00

As one who works day-to-day in a mental health setting, specifically in the area of addiction and recovery, I often find myself growing frustrated with some of what has become business-as-usual. I absolutely love my work, but I think some of these frustrations arise from my Christian faith and the increasing number of ways in which I find it conflicting with some of what we teach & preach in mental health.

Recently, I was part of a team meeting regarding one of the residents with whom I work day-to-day in a women's residential treatment center. Said resident was hoping to advance a level in her care, but was denied based upon her team's feeling that she had not yet identified with the "disease concept" of her addiction. Disease concept of chemical dependency is the concept that a disorder (such as chemical dependency or eating disorder) is like a disease and has a characteristic set of signs, symptoms, and natural history.

I understand the disease concept. It makes sense to me. And, on a clinical level, I agree with it. But on a spiritual level, I think it's irrelevant at best, and enslaving at worst. Mostly, I just don't think getting an individual to "identify with it" is all that important. Why? Because we were not created to identify ourselves with a disease.

Please don't get me wrong; I am a believer in the Twelve Steps, and any "friend of Bill W." is a friend of mine. I understand the value of admitting powerlessness over the disease of addiction so that we might then turn it over to a loving Higher Power (and for me, that Higher Power is not one of many options, but rather the highest power of all: Jesus Christ, the one true God. Just so we're clear). My issue is not with any of the Anonymous groups or with the disease concept itself; it's with the idea that we are focusing so much energy into coaching recovering addicts to embrace it. I believe addiction counselors are well-intentioned. I just think that, as Christians in the field, we may be barking up the wrong tree.

Here's the thing: By the time an addicted person finds herself in a residential treatment setting, she has likely been to many a 12-step meeting, wherein she has introduced herself time and time again as "An addict" or "an alcoholic" or "a bulimic", etc. It becomes habit after a while: state your name, state your disease. Name, disease: just like that. A one-two punch. Who you are, followed by what you are. That's the drill.

One problem: It's a lie.

If you belong to Christ, who you are is not synonymous with what your struggle happens to be.
Who you are is synonymous with Whose you are. You've been bought with a price, and you do not belong to yourself. Therefore, what you've done to yourself, with yourself, in spite of yourself, does not define you. Your disease is not the boss of you -- because not even you are the boss of you. God is. He bought you. Chose you. Adopted you. And He and He alone reserves the right to define you.

Identify with a disease concept? On second thought, maybe I do. But let's be clear, then, about the disease: my disease is that I am a chronic sinner. A chronic messer-upper. A chronic misser of the mark in life, chronically in need of a savior to redeem me and redefine me, time and time again.

Good news, though: Jesus is a chronic rescuer. Though not one to enable us in our "disease", Jesus stands at the ready, never out of reach, ready and willing to rescue us from ourselves. When we advocate for ourselves and ask Him to advance us to the next level, He doesn't admonish us to identify with our disease, but rather with Himself.

Christ removes the labels with which so many of us have become strangely comfortable, and He replaces them with unconditional, unyielding love. He replaces them, if we'll only let Him, with more of Himself.

And that, my friends, is a concept worth embracing.

The God of Do-Overs

2011-05-07T15:37:00.000-07:00

The truth? Sometimes I still secretly (or maybe not so much) wish I were Perfect Woman. You know her; you know her well. You envy her. She has perfect hair, the perfect body, the perfect husband, perfectly-behaved children who never mouth off or sass back or put their muddy shoes on the back of her leather seats in the car. She graduated Summa CumBaya with her PhXYZ from The University of Amazing Awesomeness. She is a professional. And a mom. And the best friend anyone could hope to find. Oh, she makes mistakes of course; if she didn't, you wouldn't want to be her friend because she wouldn't be "relevant" and "approachable" and "down-to-Earth." Oh yes, she makes mistakes. Once.

Okay, the jig is up: I am so not her. And this week, just to keep me good and humble, I was reminded of that.

I screwed up on a promise I made to myself this week. It's really not important for our purposes here to share the gory details; suffice it to say, right at this moment, my humanness is showing. And it's a little embarrassing.

Perfect Woman makes mistakes once. Imperfect Me makes them over and over, as many times as it takes, evidently, to remind myself of my desperate need for mercy. For grace. For friends who love me anyway. For the heart of Jesus, who is such a fan of do-overs that He commands us to forgive one another 490 times a day (70 x 7, for the non-mathletes out there). So why is it that each time I screw up, I tend to think it must be my 491st foible of the day, and that surely this time He'll be good and ticked off at me?

Truth is, I am so much harder on myself than God is. He already took my punishment, all those centuries ago on a stormy Friday afternoon. And I believe that as He hung there, thinking of you and me, doing what He did for us out of obedience and unfathomable love, He knew even then that I would mess up and go back on my word this week.

So there I sat, in my neediness and imperfection, looking around me at the pieces I'd have to pick up from my latest mistake. At first, I started gathering up the pieces quietly, hoping no one would see. Hiding the pieces with my silence, my isolation. But have you ever tried to isolate from God? It isn't easy. Like every good parent, He has eyes in the back of His head. And He is so big that He sees all from where He sits. He tapped me on the shoulder last night around 10:00, just as I thought maybe I had found a good hiding place from Him under my covers in bed. But, metaphorically speaking, He gently pulled my blanket off of me, exposing all those pieces I was attempting to hide under there.

"Give those to me," He said, His eyes smiling tenderly.
"Don't look!" I gasped, hurriedly pulling the covers over the pieces.
"Give them to me," He repeated, just as gently as before. "We'll fix it together."
"I made a mess," I cried.
"I know," He said. "Would you like a do-over?"

I hesitated.
I closed my eyes.
I felt the tears come.
I nodded.

The God of Do-Overs is infinitely more forgiving of me than I am. How I long to be more like Him! In fact, I think I'd do better to be more like Him than like Perfect Woman. She is a myth. He is the real deal. In fact, Perfect Woman doesn't think she needs the God of Do-Overs.

Tragic, really, to be so self-sufficient. She will never know Him like I do.

Put On Your Big-Girl Panties and Cowboy Up!

2011-05-02T21:31:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed how much more credit we give people after they're dead and gone? Artists' paintings suddenly become valuable, musicians' singles start getting more airplay, writers' books enjoy revivals on best-seller lists. It always strikes me as a little bittersweet: "Boy, he sure is successful nowadays. Too bad he's underground."

Today would have been my friend Cindy's 36th birthday. She's been on my mind all week. It isn't just famous people whom we tend to exalt posthumously. Cindy, for example, was never famous at all (except to a very small circle of friends by whom she was adored) -- and yet now, six years after she went to meet her maker face-to-face, I find myself remembering things she used to say and suddenly, even if only in memory, I am listening. Really listening.

Cindy was a true Texan. Her drawl was contagious; Midwestern friends could always tell when I'd spent the night before in a two-hour phone convo with Cindy because I'd have a hard time keeping "y'all" out of my own vocabulary. I used to get a kick out of the phrases that became known as Cindyisms: "Heavens to Betsy!" and "Well, shooooooot!" and "Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle!" could always make my giggle. Cindy liked to tell me what to do; two years my senior, she proudly referred to herself as my "bossy-boots big sister." And one of her most common bits of advice for me was to "Put on your big-girl panties and cowboy up!"

Several times this past week, I could almost hear her voice saying that to me. I've had to do some hard things over the last few weeks, and the temptation to give up, cave in, and wuss out has been pretty strong. But it's amazing how the Spirit of God will lead us into portions of His Word where the letters seem to jump off the page at us, just as we need them most -- and this, I suppose, is why I found myself reading James this week. I'm particularly fond of James in the Message translation. Check this out, from James 1:3-5: "You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way."

I realize now that a lot of Cindy's sisterly advice to me could have been straight out of the NTV (New Texan Version) of James 1. Maybe I should have listened a little more closely all those years ago. But of course, now that Cindy's in Heaven, her words carry a little more weight. And I swear -- I swear -- as I read James a few nights ago, I could almost hear Cindy standing next to Jesus, her hands on her hips, saying to me, "Yeah, Jena! What He said!"

Advice like this is hard to hear sometimes, whether it's from a bossy-boots big sister or from the King of Kings. Stick it out. Suck it up. Deal with it. Don't give up, wear down, back off, or fizzle out. Keep on keepin' on. Um, okay . . . how am I to do this, exactly? Thank God for verse six: "If you don't know what you're doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You'll get his help, and won't be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought."

Phew. I'm so glad God allowed for us to "not know what we are doing." 'Cause sometimes, not only do I not know how to put my big-girl panties on, but I don't even know which drawer to find them in! And God knows that. Even when I can't find my big-girl panties, He still covers my backside.

I can do this. All these hard things I'm facing this week, I can do through Christ. I'm puttin' on my big-girl panties and lookin' for my saddle. Happy birthday, Cindy.

TOP TEN SIGNS THAT YOU NEED MORE REST (from personal experience)

2011-03-23T22:06:00.001-07:00

10) You've talked yourself into believing that Red Bull actually tastes good in lieu of the milk you once used in your Wheaties.

9) Drinking coffee will no longer suffice; you must now keep a stash of coffee grounds inside your lower lip, and you tell yourself that maybe carrying a spitoon will be considered classy one day.

8) You've mastered the art of resting one eye at a time -- while driving.

7) When you finally climb into bed late one night, you find a stranger sleeping there -- and your bed actually says to you, "Look, it's been a while. I assumed we were seeing other people."

6) You consider putting it in your will to have your tombstone say, "Asleep at last -- DO NOT DISTURB!!!"

5) The last time you completed a thought was

4) (See what I mean?)

3) You've considered buying a medic alert bracelet and having it engraved with the word 'narcolepsy' -- so that when you nod off while someone is talking to you, they won't think you rude.

2) Every time you pass a Rest Stop along the highway, you bitterly shake your fist at all the sleeping truckers as you lay on your horn.

1) And the number one way to know you need more rest: You started work three hours ago and reading some snarky chick's blog is the only thing you've really accomplished.

Fear Not?

2011-03-12T16:07:00.000-08:00

I know you've been there; you know what it's like. Your palms sweat, your throat tightens up, your heart races and you feel like your stomach is about to fall right through your . . . Well, you get the picture. Fear stinks, doesn't it? It's no fun at all to look ahead at something inevitable -- something frightening or foreboding or intimidating -- and to feel your body react with an increase of adrenaline so extreme that you feel like you could either lift a car with your pinky or just pass out cold where you stand, your body falling away from you like an old pair of pants.

I'm not proud of this, but there have been moments in my life where I was so incapacitated by fear that I actually fainted. Fainting itself is a frightening experience. First your vision narrows, blackness closing in on you from either side until the light fades away completely. Then your fingers and toes begin to either tingle or fall off completely -- you can never tell which -- and then your ears ring and your head detatches from your neck and floats up into some wild blue yonder as the floor disappears beneath you. It isn't quite like in the movies. It was once considered very ladylike -- very dainty and feminine and Victorian -- to swoon; the tiny porcelain hand flies up to the forehead as the corseted damsil sighs and slides gracefully down, usually onto a velvet chaise with a virile gentleman caller not far behind. In real life (or at least in my life) it is a bit less romantic. It is less like swooning and more like dying -- or at least that's how it feels.

That kind of fear is paralyzing, debilitating. It feels completely out of one's control. But is it? Almost every book of the Bible includes a "fear not" passage. And I'm not so sure "fear not" is a suggestion; I believe it is a clear command and directive from the One who empowers us to overcome. But I gotta admit: it used to kinda tick me off. "Fear not?" I thought. "What is that, sarcasm?"

Fear not, as in "do not fear." Not as in "try not to fear" but as in "just don't." Easier said than done. For years, I had this major beef with God over His infallible Word: If fear is an emotion, and we don't necessarily choose our emotions, how can God expect us to simply stop fearing? It seemed like a cruel joke to me, to be honest. After all, He doesn't expect us not to get angry -- only not to sin in our anger. He doesn't expect us not to be sad -- only to remember that He bore our sorrows and to allow Him to be the lifter of our heads when we experience sadness and grief. But fear and anxiety seem to be another story. How can that be?

I've searched and prayed and wondered and argued with God (am I the only one who does this?), and here's what I figure: The difference is that fear and anxiety are in such direct opposition to a surrendering faith that God asks us to give the emotion of fear to Him -- and to allow His perfect love to cast it out completely (I John 4:18).

Okay, but where is the practical application? What does surrendering our fear look like in action? In DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy), there is a skill called opposite-to-emotion action, wherein we feel the emotion -- for our purposes here, we'll say the emotion is fear -- and choose to act in direct opposition to it, while still experiencing the emotion. "I'm afraid to dive off of the high dive into the water ten feet below -- and geronimo!" Or "there are two hundred people in the audience out there and I'm terrified to step onto the stage -- and here I go." Or, in my case, "I haven't been to the dentist in years and I'm pretty sure I might faint in the chair if I actually make an appointment and show up -- and I'm making the stinkin' phone call." (Honestly, I think I'd much rather dive the ten feet -- or a hundred and ten.)

I don't exclusively look to modern psychology for answers, but that one idea does appeal to me, because I don't believe some psych guru invented it. "Opposite-to-emotion action" was God's idea; the cross is proof of that. Jesus' willingness to be crucified had nothing to do with His mood. He was as much God as though He were not man, and as much man as though He were not God, so I think we can be certain that He felt enormous fear that Friday -- but He didn't obey the fear. He obeyed the One who commanded Him to fear not -- and He picked up that cross and walked anyway. And that changed everything.

The rest of us don't have nearly that much at stake. In most cases, no one else's life or destiny depends upon our decision to act in opposition to our fear; usually, we're the only ones who suffer if we ignore the "fear nots" in our Bibles. And speaking for myself, it's a darn good thing, because I'm not quite on top of this yet.

Still, I'm learning. It's been years since fear has caused me to faint, and it certainly isn't because I've stopped experiencing the emotion. The difference is that I have taken chances on God, just in case He was right. And it turns out He's been right every time so far. Each time that I have dared to explore what it means to "fear not", it has become a tiny bit easier to choose faith through my fear.

And someday (soon), my dentist will be so proud.

What I've Learned in 2010 . . .

2010-12-31T09:44:00.000-08:00

20.) When making brownies, the egg is not optional.

19.) I am capable of doing really hard things and surviving anyway.

18.) Emotional discomfort is part of life, and constantly striving to make it go away is futile -- like trying to soak up rain puddles. There is always more rain coming, at some point. Better to learn to play in the puddles.

17.) When sampling a new brew at the Starbucks counter, it's not a good idea to blurt out, "This must be the coffee they serve in Hell." No matter how awful it tastes. Know your audience.

16.) Songwriting is really fun.

15.) Bodies in motion must, at some point, become bodies at rest. There seem to be no loopholes here.

14.) I can run pretty fast when I have to. In a rainstorm. And in heels.

13.) You cannot drive your car through two feet of standing water. (You can drive your car INTO two feet of standing water, but not through it.) RIP, little red Mazda.

12.) Trying to teach a cat to stop peeing on the carpet is like trying to nail Jell-o to a tree.

11.) Bananagrams may be the most addicting game ever. "Hi, my name is Jena, and it has been four days since I last played . . . "

10.) It is completely possible to absolutely LOVE a job that just barely pays your bills. This is why the Human Services fields remain. (Psst. Have you hugged a social worker today?)

9.) You know that overused cliche, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care?" Turns out it is completely and absolutely true. Go figure.

8.) Sometimes vulnerability is its own reward. When it comes to sharing a personal struggle, it seems that honesty begets honesty. This continues to inspire and amaze me.

7.) I'm starting to think that maybe the greatest human need is to be KNOWN, through and through. ("To be unknown of God is entirely too much privacy." -- Thomas Merton)

6.) When you work in a rehab, it doesn't matter if the client is an 18-year-old anorexic or a 74-year-old alcoholic. They are first and foremost people, and if you listen closely, you will relate to them in ways that will knock your socks off -- whether or not you want admit it.

5.) If you want to know who your true friends are, confess something majorly embarrassing and see how they respond to you. Also, my friends are even cooler than I thought they were.

4.) When your pastor's wife can say to you, "Honey, your church family loves you for more than what you can do for us", you know you have a good thing going. And I do.

3.) When you have a book published, people will automatically assume you know what you are talking about. They will also assume you are rich. They will be wrong.

2.) Wisdom and discernment do not always come easily to me. This is why I am grateful for my counselor, my agent, my pastor, my mentors, and above all, my God. (For some of us it takes a village.)

And, whaddyaknow, the same thing that topped my list in 2009 topped it again in 2010. The number one thing I have learned this year was:

1.) I still have more to learn.

Up in the Air

2010-09-25T19:51:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, God just picks you up and sets you back down in a place you never thought you’d find yourself in a million years. I’m sitting in one of those places right now.

As I type this, I am thousands of feet in the air, flying out of Springfield, Missouri after an AACC (American Association of Christian Counselors) conference. And, as I type this, I am sitting two feet away (literally; it’s a VERY small plane) from Dr. John Townsend – THE Dr. John Townsend, of Cloud & Townsend, the esteemed team who have given us such Christian counseling classics as Boundaries and Changes that Heal. If I were the gushing type (I’m really trying to curb it), I could have started telling him how his books have changed my life, have challenged me, have gotten thrown across therapists’ offices when I felt they asked me to do impossible things. Instead, I sat beside him awhile, politely waiting for him to wake up when we hit turbulence.

After a few moments, I heard a soft voice from across the aisle. “Did you enjoy the conference?”

I smiled. “Yes, very much, thank you.” What ensued was a brief conversation about the events of the weekend, his books, my book, mutual acquaintances in the recovery world. He extended his hand and officially introduced himself to me. “John Townsend,” he said, as if I didn’t know. He did not say “Doctor” John Townsend.

We agreed to exchange books once we deplaned, and then he went back to his iPad and I pulled out my laptop to work. Because, when all was said and done, he wasn’t some acclaimed psychology guru and I wasn’t some newbie to the field. We were just two people on an airplane.

I love God’s way of leveling the playing field and reminding us all of who we are – His servants, His creations, His vessels, His tools, His voice, His instruments. Common thread here: We are His. We can do nothing apart from Him, and yet we can do “all things” through Him (Philippians 4:13). And He doesn’t seem all that concerned with our lack of credentials – nor does he seem all that impressed with the ones we may have.

Don’t get me wrong: I'd like some credentials. If I had fancy degree, I might just hold it in my hands a while, rubbing its fiber between my fingers just for the sake of feeling it, of grasping it. And that, presumably, is why God hasn’t yet provided a way for me to start my journey back to school. It means too much to me -- or, rather, it means the wrong thing to me. It means significance, and He never intended me to get my significance from a piece of paper.

John Townsend is a wonderful man of God. He is an excellent speaker, a prolific writer, and no doubt a gifted clinician. And yet God has the audacity to ask me to believe that I am every bit as significant as he is. And why? Because of the cross. Simple as that.

I think it’s probably a good thing, actually –my lack of a title at this point in time. Booksignings can get a little heady; everyone gushes and tells you how wonderful you are because you turned something ugly into something that can help people. This is, then, your cue to politely counter that only God Himself can take something ugly and make it beautiful and that you are just grateful to be on His anvil. And it works, telling people that – because it reminds you, each and every time, that it is absolutely true.

I am nothing without God – His hand upon me, His life within me, His words on my tongue and at my fingertips. “Oh, but you’re talented,” people will counter, and I will want to argue, “Please. I’m a college dropout. I’m winging it here.” But instead I say, “Thank you; that’s very kind of you to say.” Because I’m learning, see. I’m following after God like a puppy dog and watching intently as He shows me who I am because of Him, and why it’s okay to take a compliment once in a while, even if I’m not Dr. John Townsend.

So, John and I (he said I could call him John; I asked) shared a bit more conversation before the plane landed; we talked about the role of blogging and social media in the context of writing. And again, we were colleagues, equals -- just two people trying to navigate the waters of public ministry, wanting to do it right.

When I catch glimpses of it, I really dig God’s perspective on things. It takes the pressure off. He looks at you and at me and sees potential. And promise. And hope. Unwritten words, unsung songs, uninvented ideas. Unreached hearts, even. He doesn’t look at what we haven’t yet attained or accomplished, but at what He intends to accomplish through our lives.

And rest assured –He will accomplish His purpose. One way or another. Whether we are bestselling authors and keynote speakers or college dropouts recovering from inferiority complexes. And when we get out of our own way long enough to listen, He will speak.

Even at 30,000 feet.

"Waiting for the Artist"

2010-09-06T21:36:00.000-07:00

for the TK girls

She stands beside me,
Waiting for her ride.
Soft downy hair on her
Arms and cheeks
Catch sunlight.
She clutches at her belly,
Hunches over, face a grimace.
"Ohh," she moans, and her eyes
Become strangely familiar --
Mirrors of a sort, they show me
A girl of yesterday.
A girl of sorrows.
A girl who knew too much
And felt too little.
Her eyes remind me of that girl,
Whose body I once occupied,
Whose wasted frame I lived within --
If you could call it living.
"I'm so FULL," this girl
Laments to me now, and I
Smile with empathy. "I know," I say --
Which is to say, I remember.
"It will go away," I assure her,
And she appears to want to believe.
Full, she says, and I have to wonder --
Full of . . . ?
Of fear, of dread, or shame?
Of a tentative, undying hope?
Of a will to go on,
To push, to trust, to try?
This too, I remember, this mosaic
Of emotion -- broken pieces of a life
Once believed to have been whole --
Of a heart, a soul, a self.
Broken pieces, waiting --
As my girl waits for her ride --
Waiting for the Artist to pick them up
And lie them down again
In all new places, with all new purpose --
Waiting to be arranged into something
Even more beautiful
Than they might have been
If they had never been broken at all.

Who's Afraid of a Room Full of Therapists?

2010-05-26T12:08:00.001-07:00

Well, me, evidently! Tomorrow, I will be representing both my book and my employer, Timberline Knolls, as I head up to the Meier Clinic in Wheaton, Illinois to share my story, introduce myself, and have a little Q & A powwow with their clinical staff. This will be the first of several visits to Meier Clinics across the country, so we're kickin' it off with the one right in by own backyard. I really have no reason to be nervous; I mean, it’s not a room full of drill sergeants; it’s a room full of therapists. Should be a gentle crowd; these folks are encouraging and supportive by trade. They’re nice people, for a living. Right?

But, see, it’s that voice again. That nasty, weasely little voice that likes to chime in and remind me of who I am not: credentialed, official, well-schooled, respected, esteemed. A graduate. A finisher. A someone. A someone with letters – Jena Morrow, XYZ, PDQ. So what do I have to say to a room full of PsyD’s and LCPC’s and LCSW’s and LMFT’s and LMNOP’s? And why do they seem to want to listen?

Good question. But they do. And they’ve invited me. And I’m going.

Do you recognize that voice? Does she creep into your mind and tease and taunt you, too? Does she tell you that you are not good enough, smart enough, and that doggone it, maybe people really don’t like you? She is the anti-Stewart Smalley. She is the author of a bestseller: Negative Affirmations. And the only reason it’s a bestseller is that we keep on buying it. A recent development in my life: I’m sick of it.

In my work at Timberline Knolls (a residential treatment center for women battling eating disorders, mood disorders, and substance abuse), I am becoming familiar with Marsha Linehan’s practical modality known as DBT: Dialectical Behavior Therapy. The term ‘dialectical’ is defined as “holding two seemingly opposite truths together as one” –specifically, holding acceptance together with a willingness to change. (In this case, I am accepting that I am feeling intimidated by a group of twenty well-educated therapists, while also exercising my willingness to change by getting in the car and driving to the clinic to tell my story and speak to the staff.)

The overall goal of DBT is to enable clients to create “a life worth living.” This idea, as I see it, compliments the thesis of Donald Miller’s recent book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: we must live in such a way that we tell a good story with the lives that we live. I’m learning, opportunity by opportunity, to live my life in such a way. I am learning to take risks. Without them, our lives are boring—safe, but boring. Not the kind of story that will hold the attention of our grandchildren one day. Without taking some risks, I’m not even sure I am capable of creating a life worth living. Are you?

So, I’m going. I’m going as I am, accepting that I am intimidated, but being willing to change and not stay stuck in my apprehension.

I’m going.

Can’t live out a good story without conflict and drama and tension and action, right?

Right. And I’m going.

Find out why book reviewer Kristine McGuire wanted to "slap the author upside the head" while reading Hollow . . .

2010-05-24T14:45:00.000-07:00

http://kristinemcguire.com/?p=4003

Touching book review from a reader (via Amazon.com) . . .

2010-05-07T17:39:00.000-07:00

Humbling review of Hollow from a reader named Bobbie . . .

"When I first began reading this book, I almost put it down and walked away. The emotions from page one were so intense.

For anyone who has felt less than worthy - you will find yourself in this book.
For anyone who has struggled with self-image - you will relate to this book.
For anyone who has completed a 12-step program - You know the roller coaster of recovery you will find in this book.
For anyone who has had a friend or loved one who has struggled with a food disorder - you must read this book.

For anyone who has a food disorder, inside of these pages you will find a friend. You will find someone who understands your feelings, who knows your story. This friend will introduce you to Someone who walked with her through her darkest days, who loved her in her deepest valleys, and who holds her hand every single day ... His name is Jesus.

Jena writes the story of her longstanding battle towards recovery in a way that draws you in and doesn't let you go. She explains in great detail exactly how the disease took hold of her life, and the way she hears the siren that calls to her each and every day. The battle of addiction is never over, and her addiction to controlling her body through the disease of food disorder is an ongoing battle.

As a Pastor, I did not expect to have her words resonate so loudly in my own life. And yet, they did. Her battle with a food disorder is all of our battle with sin - the same voice that calls her to disobedience and darkness in this one area is the voice all of us hear calling us to disobedience and darkness and death.

Thank you, Jena, for sharing a story that will live in my heart ... for the despair, the joys, and the struggle that you live every single day. You have given all of us a precious gift."

THANK YOU, BOBBIE! You have the distinction of being the very first reviewer of Hollow on the Amazon website, and what joy your review has brought to my heart. Thank you, so very much, for taking the time.

Warmly,
Jena

2010-05-04T17:56:00.001-07:00

Ping.fm testing 1, 2, 3 . . .

In anticipation of Mothers Day . . . a sample chapter from my Work-in-Progress :-)

2010-04-28T22:19:00.000-07:00

I don’t care how cool you are, or how cool you think you are, once you become a parent you are forever at risk of humiliation. Pregnancy is just the set-up—God’s way of easing us down. It happens slowly, of course, because God is kind and knows how fragile our egos are, so He peels off our pride one layer at a time.

Because of the fragile ego thing, He gives us a little boost in the beginning—increases our blood flow or something like that—and people start telling us how cute we are, patting our poochy little tummies and gushing on and on about our “glow.” We enjoy this. We feel pretty darn special, walking around (the waddling comes later) with our glowy cheeks held high, feeling invincible because, for Pete’s sake, we are mighty people-making machines now. If we can incubate a life and actually grow a person, we must surely be capable of anything.

But God doesn’t want us to get too big for our britches (pun intended—we’re about to get too big for a Sumo wrestler’s britches), so He reminds us that only He is God the Creator of Life. We are still human, still frail, still fallible, and we must be reminded of this. So God makes us incontinent. And prone to burping. And then He gives us the hiccups—not dainty little girly-girl hiccups, but loud, echoing, register-on-the-Richter-scale hiccups—the kind so noisy that the startled fetus gets a head start on his anxiety disorder.

No one has ever been brought to her knees in humiliation from hiccups, but factor into the equation things like stretch marks, hemorrhoids, insatiable cravings for all things peanut butter or pickle, swollen ankles, strangely wide feet, sausagey fingers and breasts so tender you want to slap a sticker over each that says “FRAGILE”, and it’s easy to see how we arrive at our due dates with far less pride than we had when we glowed through month three.

Whatever remaining dignity we manage to drag with us into the fortieth week is sure to disintegrate once we get our little piggies into the stirrups. There really should be a sign, don’t you agree? A big backlit hot pink sign on every maternity floor of every hospital which reads, “What happens in the delivery room stays in the delivery room!” We need to be granted license, I think, to say (or scream) whatever we want as we are turned inside out on the table, knowing that it shall never be repeated or held against us in a court of law.

I remember people telling me that the moment my baby was born, I would hold him in my arms and I would forget all about the torture I had just endured. Liars.

I still wrestle the Mom Guilt to this day over my reaction to my precious little bundle of joy as he was placed across my traumatized belly: I ignored him. Completely. Didn’t even acknowledge he was there. (I know, I know—Mother of the Year, indeed.) “Jena, look at your baby!” the midwife said. “Look at Jaden; he’s here!” And I waved her off, still caught up in self-pity as I ached and burned from the greatest assault on my body I had ever survived, and said, “I will in a minute!”

I will in a minute. Brilliant.

Let me redeem myself in your eyes before you slam the cover closed and tell all your friends not to buy a book from the most selfish mother alive: once I managed to pry my eyes open and look down at the little person squirming on my tummy, I was completely smitten. I fell in love so deep I’ll never get out. The minute I looked at my baby boy I understood how mothers are able to muster the adrenaline to lift cars off of their trapped children. This kind of love is crazy—it’s all-consuming and forever-enduring and longsuffering and irrational and just . . . huge.

I looked into Jaden’s squinty little cloudy-blue eyes and thought about John 3:16: For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. Jaden is my “one and only son”—and all I can say is, it’s a good thing I’m not God.

It is true that some sort of God-granted love takes over once a mother gives birth. It’s the kind of love that enables her to forgive the baby for all that he has already put her through by the time he is born—to love him and be crazy about him, all the while knowing full well that he is singlehandedly responsible for the widening of her hips. That kind of love.

But it takes more than warm fuzzy new-mommy love to equip one to care for a newborn. Some things you just have to learn the hard way—by trial and error.

We had been home from the hospital for two days, and we stunk—both of us. First I tried strapping my infant into his vibrating bouncy seat and placing him on the bathroom floor, just two feet from the shower. I figured I could keep singing to him while I lathered up on the other side of the curtain, and then slip into my robe and transfer him to his spongy little baby bathtub thingy.

Oh, but that would have been too easy. The child screamed louder than I could sing, and the Mom Guilt took over again. (It’s some wicked powerful stuff, the Mom Guilt.) So I did what any sleep-deprived, stinky, half-showered new mother would do: I drew some bath water and brought the baby into the tub with me.

FYI: infants are very slippery when wet. Should you attempt this co-bathing method, please use caution. Or rubber gloves. I made sure the temperature of the water was newborn-friendly and I gently lowered the baby into the water as I clutched him in a Kung Fu grip to my chest.
The screaming. Oh, the screaming. Again. Louder than before.

Just then, Jaden began to root around looking to nurse, and I had an epiphany: I helped him to find what he was looking for, and praised God for the convenience of breastfeeding. With my baby suckling and contented, I leaned back in the tub and exhaled, letting a glorious, incomparable peace wash over me.

Oops. Turns out that it wasn’t exactly “peace” I was feeling. Incidentally, did you know that infants have very short digestive tracts?

So there we two sat—bathing now in . . . There is just no gentle way to say it, really. We were soaking in poop water. I panicked, visions of e-coli dancing in my head as I imagined my baby’s circumcision and umbilical stump becoming two massive infections before we could exit the tub.

How to exit the tub, exactly? I had zero abdominal strength, having just given birth two days before—and I had my hands full of poopy baby, so I couldn’t pull myself up with the old lady grab bar thing left behind from the 92-year-old from whom we had bought the condo. So I did what you might also have done: I burst into tears and apologized profusely to my son for being a clueless, inadequate, selfish mother whose child would die from an e-coli infection because she couldn’t wait until he napped to take a shower.

Somehow, I managed to lift the baby over the side of the tub and lay him on the fuzzy bathroom rug while I stood to my feet and scanned the room for a towel—and caught sight of myself in the mirror above the vanity.

Oops.

As I stepped out of a tub full of baby mess, the mirror before me reflected a nude, crazed-looking woman with swollen everything, bags under her eyes, dark blue bruises in the oddest places (infants have incredible sucking strength when they’re hungry), and a belly-and-thighs combo that looked as though it had been formed out of soft white Play-Doh. And now the baby and I were both wailing.

I scooped Jaden up that day and carried him to the kitchen sink where I quickly disinfected his tender little baby boy parts as I laughed through my tears and said, “Kid, I’m a mess, but you’re stuck with me. Good thing I’m crazy about you.” He seemed to understand, I think. He was surprisingly forgiving.

But that’s because he knew he would get back at me later.

Heartwarming post from a reader . . .

2010-04-15T09:05:00.001-07:00

Received this today from a young woman via Facebook private message, and she has agreed to allow me to share it. I am humbled and blessed to think that God would use my random confessions and musings to reach and touch others. How cool that He could do it without us, and yet He chooses to use us. I'll never get over the wonder of that.

Chelsey says . . . "I just came across your page after seeing a post on Remuda Ranch's wall and I decided to read over the blogs listed on your info. They are wonderfully convicting and remind me that although every day is a battle to not engage in self-hate and remain in recovery, there is unceasing hope and grace at the hands of our Father.

I don't know you but I also cannot adequately express my gratitude. After going into organ failure at the age of 18 (I'm 21 now), I was sent to Remuda entirely against my will. I've never felt more understood or loved, and for once I felt like I was allowed to heal -- that I didn't have to remain sucked into the lies I'd been told my entire life and that it was really okay to be okay, in fact, maybe I deserved that.

Anyway, that's just a short musing of my story. Know that your blogs are rays of light in the continual fight to truly live.
Love, Chelsey

P.S. I just saw you have a memoir being released in a couple weeks! That's awesome!"

Thank you again, Chelsey, for reaching out. I wish you all the best in your recovery and in your journey. Stay well! Continue to CHOOSE LIFE!

Your Tongue: Handle with Care

2010-03-05T13:34:00.000-08:00

When our parents taught us to talk, they were actually equipping us with a very powerful weapon which could be used to edify or to destroy. For many of us, it has taken years of honing to know how to use our tongues for good and not for evil. It begins in pre-school ("Oh no, sweetie, we don't use those words. Please apologize to Tommy.") and it's a lesson we continue to learn well into adulthood: words are powerful, and we must handle them with care.

My son and I are currently reviewing this lesson. When he is angered or frustrated, often he will spit venom in the form of words, faster than he can think them over. This is not a new learning topic for us, but when he told me last week that he hoped I would die soon, I decided that maybe it was time for some review. (I also decided that boys are every bit as capable as girls at being drama queens. Sheesh.)

I reminded Jaden of the "Toothpaste Lesson" we had done when he was four. Surprisingly, he remembered it. It goes a little something like this:

1) Sit your children down at the table and give them each a travel-sized tube of toothpaste and a paper plate.

2) Put a twenty-dollar bill in the middle of the table.

3) Tell the children that they are going to have a contest. The first part of the contest is to see who can squeeze all of their toothpaste out onto the plate the fastest. (Little kids love this step.)

4) When the fastest kid shouts "Done!", congratulate him -- and then tell him that the next step is how the winner is determined: whoever can get their toothpaste back INTO the tube the fastest wins the twenty dollars!

5) Watch the children try, in vain, to replace the toothpaste. When they realize it is impossible, explain how the toothpaste is like our words: once we put them out there, they cannot be taken back. Words cannot be 'unsaid.'

Jaden and I came full-circle with the discipline last week, and he lost his Wii for a week. I told him that as he gets older, the stakes get higher -- because as we grow into maturity and life gives us more of a voice, the stakes are higher to use it correctly or risk doing real damage to others and ourselves.

Case in point: a week ago, I spoke at a treatment center for eating disorders and substance abuse. I delivered my talk, I read from my book, and I ended with an extended Q & A session. Afterward, one of the patients approached me as I was packing up my belongings. She had these pleading brown eyes which have been haunting me since last Friday. "How do you get your family to understand? I mean, they're the ones who called me names all my life," she said, as her chin began to tremble, "and now they can't see what their words have done to me."

I told this young woman that while her family may never understand her struggle with eating disorders, she can still ask them to respect it, and I reminded her that her recovery is not her family's responsibility, even though they may have played a role in her descent. Still, I could see the pain in her eyes: she wanted them to own what they had done to her. Was that so much to ask?

I think of another teen I know, a fourteen-year-old boy who suffers verbal abuse at the hands of his own father. Daily, this young man is called "idiot" and "fag" and "loser" -- by his own parent. I cannot even imagine the emotional pain connected to that. I wish we could go back in time to the father's childhood, and sit him down at a table with some toothpaste and a paper plate . . .

We're all carrying deadly weapons around in our mouths, all day long. For centuries, people have come to understand the power of the tongue. Proverbs 18:21 says it this way: "The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit." (NIV). I rather like the Message paraphrase: "Words kill, words give life. They're either poison or fruit -- you choose."

The choice, clearly enough, is ours to make. Words, like toothpaste, are easy to squeeze out -- and impossible to squeeze back in. Life and death are inside of our mouths. Let us choose wisely.

Remembering Cindy (A Personal Challenge)

2010-02-21T17:08:00.000-08:00

This week marks the five-year anniversary of the death of a dear friend of mine, Cindy Ward. Cindy died of complications of anorexia at the age of 29—ironically, right at the beginning of Eating Disorder Awareness Week in 2005. This time of year, then, is always bittersweet for me as I see the efforts and outreach events planned to help raise awareness and educate people about the very thing which stole my friend’s life out of season.

Five years is both a short time and a long time, depending on one’s perspective—it’s a short time, for example, to be married; it’s a long time to be a prisoner of war. It’s a short time to enjoy the life of a child—and a very long time to live without the child after her passing.

We can do a lot in five years time, can’t we? I was thinking last night about all the things that have happened, just in my own singular, fleeting-as-vapor life in the five years since Cindy passed away. I’ve gone from mother-of-a-toddler to mother-of-a-second-grader. I watched my grandmother take her last breath. I’ve changed jobs twice. I bought a house. I got laid off. I wrote a book. And I got to wondering what might have happened in Cindy’s life that she never lived to see or accomplish. Would she have gotten married? Had a child? Gone back to school? Written a book or gone on a mission trip or shared her faith with dying hearts? She might have. But her own dying heart beat her to the punch.

I truly believe Cindy didn’t see it coming. Even after multiple heart attacks before age thirty, she didn’t really think she’d die. If she had known, she would have done things differently. I just know this.

So, naturally, I got to feeling philosophical and weepy about it all. It’s become a cliché, to lament that life is short, our days are numbered, blah, blah, blah. It’s become so trite, I think, that we forget that it is true—and we never know for whom it will be true next. What if it’s me? Or you? What do we want to do before our number is up? If it’s something huge and seemingly insurmountable, shouldn’t we at least give it a shot so it can be said that we died trying?

I’m not sad for Cindy; I know where she is and Who she is with. And I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that even if she could come back here, she wouldn’t—not for one minute. I’m not even all that sad for myself anymore, as I was when she first passed. It dulls after a while, the longing for one last hug, one more email or card or phone call. We move from grieving to acceptance—and maybe we even feel a little guilty about that as the grief becomes lighter and lighter a burden. What I’m sad about is the loss of what could have been—how Cindy could have contributed to the world over the past five years. She could have done so much with her talents, her generous spirit, her kind heart. And I’ll never know exactly what.

But all of you who are reading this are still here. And not to be morose, but of those who will read this, one of you will be next to leave this Earth. Someone has to be. Maybe it will be you. Or me. If it is, are we making the most of our time until we graduate out of this world? Are we chasing a dream or working on a goal or loving to the fullest of our hearts’ potential? I can’t answer for you; I can only answer for myself, and I’ll be the first to admit it: I’m not. I’ve gotten complacent in a few areas. I’m dragging my feet on some things for fear of failure. And really, what’s the worst that could happen?

I know my friend, and if she could come back for five minutes, I think she would tell us to shrug off the fear that binds us and go for it—whatever our particular “it” is.

So . . . shall we?

In joyful, loving memory:
Cindy Ward (1975-2005)
“Cowgirl up, Cindy!”

For futher information about National Eating Disorder Awareness Week 2010 (Feb. 21-27), check out http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/programs-events/nedawareness-week.php

Therapists Are People, Too: Idealizing Your Counselor Will Not Help You

2010-01-30T12:46:00.001-08:00

Picture it: you are thirteen years old. You and your friends are hanging out in the mall, sucking down chili dogs and Cokes, standing around trying to look cool (and trying to look like you’re not trying to look cool). You laugh, you play with your hair, you admire your shoes. And then you catch sight of someone out of the corner of your eye and the scene screeches to pause: it’s your teacher. You all giggle, strangely uncomfortable, almost fascinated. Seeing your teacher outside of school – where she’s wearing jeans and holding hands with her husband and answering to her first name – is awkward. After all, don’t teachers just climb into their glass cases at four o’clock and turn into lifeless wax figures until the bell rings the next morning? They don’t have their own lives – do they?

Now fast-forward twenty years or so and imagine a similar scenario. You’re shopping in the mall, still secretly trying to look cool, in your very adult, pseudo mature way, of course. You’re hunting through a stack of sweaters on a table when you hear a familiar voice – a voice you hear often, say, once a week for about fifty minutes at a time. You look up as the voice registers in your brain as that of your therapist. She’s talking into her cell phone as she shops, and you realize she is engaged in an argument with someone. You blush. You want to escape before she sees you – to save you both the embarrassment. It doesn’t seem right, hearing your therapist duking out her own relationship strife. She shouldn’t have any relationship strife – should she?

Does your therapist having an argument with her husband or mother or child equate to the plumber with the leaky faucet, the mechanic who’s overdue for his oil change, or the out-of-shape gym teacher? Or . . . does it simply make her human?

Having spent some time “on the couch” in my thirty-three years, sorting through relationship issues, an eating disorder, and just life in general, I have been guilty of idealizing my therapists in the past. My guess is it’s a somewhat common tendency. We want to know that someone’s life actually works for them, that someone has it all together, because if they don’t, how can we hope to?

I shared this recently with my friend Allen, a clinical psychologist. “It always seemed to me that the coffee table between a therapist and me was the defining border between functional and dysfunctional, between normal and flawed.” Allen’s response was, “Well, I don’t have a coffee table in my office. “ I laughed. He went on to say, “All the good therapists start their training while dealing with their brokenness. We don't hire anyone who hasn't.”

Can that be true? If it is, the implication is profound: therapists are people, too. People with problems. People with heartaches. Flawed, imperfect, blemished people who hurt and bleed and make messes just like the rest of us.

I remember sitting in a movie theater a few years ago, seeing the romantic comedy Prime, in which Meryl Streep plays a psychotherapist who discovers that her 37-year-old client is dating her 23-year-old son. It was a charming film, and Streep did a wonderful job of portraying a professional caught in the ultimate web of conflicted interests. Around the middle plot point of the movie, Streep’s character is shown visiting her own therapist. At this scene, the audience erupted in laughter. It seemed that most people at the movie that night thought it ironic and funny for a therapist to be seeking therapy for herself. But is it?

“I am perplexed by the number of therapists who have never experienced the counseling process for themselves,” says James P. Krehbiel, Ed.S., an author and cognitive-behavioral therapist practicing in Scottsdale, Arizona. “Fortunately, many educational institutions that educate therapists mandate counseling as an aspect of their training program. In my opinion, no therapist should be licensed without having experienced the counseling process as a patient. How can a therapist identify with his clients if he has never sat in the other chair?”

In other words, a counselor who seeks counseling is wise. But can we handle that? Are we ready to let go of the impossible ideal of a perfect person on the opposite side of the Great Coffee Table? We have to be. Idealizing one’s therapist is counterproductive.

Look, life is messy. If we are engaged in the process of life – with ebbs and flows and ups and downs – there are going to be problems. There are going to be arguments. And strife. And discouragement. And maybe even depression. The flipside of these realities is that there will also be joy. And celebration. And laughter. If we are human, we will experience all of these things, both desirable and undesirable. Every one of us. Clients and therapists alike.

It is not your therapist’s job to represent some unattainable state of grace to which you should aspire. It is his or her job to come alongside of you and help you achieve the closest thing to a state of grace that we as humans can hope for: inner peace in a turbulent world full of imperfect people.

The state of human brokenness is universal. We’re all in this together.

When Sickness is Celebrated: Exploring the 'Pro-Ana' Trend

2010-01-30T12:42:00.000-08:00

We all know eating disorders are dangerous. We would have had to have been living under a rock for the past twenty years to have missed all the cautionary tales, tabloid headlines, and made-for-TV movies that have dramatized the dangers and trappings of such psychological illnesses as anorexia nervosa and bulimia. But a disturbing new trend has come about in the eating disorder community in recent years — and ‘community’ is, in fact, the operative word.

With the advent of internet chat rooms in the late 1990’s came a new means for technologically-savvy sufferers to commiserate in their illnesses. And today, in the age of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, gone are the days when eating disorders were synonymous with isolation; conversely, those with eating disorders — especially young sufferers — now have formed a sort of sob-society online, wherein they are finding encouragement to proceed in their illnesses, often to the point of no return.

When I was a teen suffering with anorexia in the 1990’s, I gradually withdrew from my friends and family, seeking solitude as a refuge from the prying questions and intrusive concern of outsiders. As is almost always the case with these illnesses, my disorder became the most important thing in my world, and I came to a point where I would have done anything at all to protect it — even if that meant my world growing strangely small. And while I found a dysfunctional sort of comfort in the bell jar of my anorexic world, I had an undercurrent of awareness that my life had fallen away from normal. I didn’t necessarily want things to be right — but at least I knew that something was wrong.

Many of today’s young anoretics are unified in their exclusive world, and they all seem to know the secret handshake. “Pro-ana” is a modern term describing a sect of eating disorder sufferers who seek to embrace anorexia and bulimia as lifestyle choices rather than life-threatening illnesses requiring treatment.

In pro-ana circles, the illnesses are no longer referred to in clinical terms, but rather by familiar, almost friendly-sounding nicknames: “ana” for anorexia and “mia” for bulimia. The lingo also includes such neo-slang terms as “thinspiration” or “thinspo”, which is any sort of material — photos, song lyrics, books, video — that inspires sufferers to lose weight; “food porn”, which are images intended to allow a sufferer to enjoy the food vicariously by poring over the images and imagining eating the foods portrayed; and “wannarexics”, which are usually young girls (and sometimes guys) who are deemed by the group to be illegitimate posers — those seeking to pop into the chat room for diet tips and tricks who do not intend to make the disease their lifestyle, or who are not already chronic sufferers.

I spent a week lurking in these pro-ana chat rooms and groups, and was disturbed by the cameraderie that was so evident among the girls in the group. They know one another by screen names such as TinyDancer, LovelyBones, and LilStickFigure17. Their posts to one another are almost sickeningly sweet as they encourage one another one their group fasts, cleansing programs, and in their attempts to thwart the efforts of their therapists and parents or boyfriends to “make them fat.” There seems to exist a terrible “us-versus-them” mentality in the groups, wherein mental health professionals are the enemy, bent on invading their utopia.

These girls believe they can live this way. They believe that their systems are sustainable. They convince themselves — and one another — that the decision to live on, say, 250 calories per day, is a hallmark of self-control and willpower, and that those who would seek to correct their self-destructive behavior are merely jealous.
So how then do we hope to reach a generation of psychologically-fragile young women who have found comfort and community in such deadly territory? What can we offer them that their counterfeit online relationships cannot? And how do we go about doing so before it is too late?

Anorexia nervosa holds the highest mortality rate of all psychological illnesses, and is the third most common chronic illness among adolescents. A study by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders reported that 5 – 10% of anoretics die within 10 years after contracting the disease; 18-20% of anoretics will be dead after 20 years and only 30 – 40% ever fully recover. The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate of all causes of death for females 15 – 24 years old.

The threat of death is real. The allure of sickness is enigmatic. The number of statistics is growing. What can we do? Have we any options? Is there an answer?
If there is any key piece to the puzzle, it is awareness. We must be aware of our teens’ online lives. They have done their homework, seeking out the forums and learning the protocol. We need to do the same. We cannot look the other way and hope the phase passes. These stakes are too high. Statistics show that early intervention affords an anoretic the greatest chance of recovery.

Got a teen or tween in your life? Sister, daughter, student, friend? Keep your eyes open. Watch for warning signs. Mentor her. Love her. Encourage her. Help her to discover her unique talents before she becomes fully convinced that starving is an art. Engage her. As much as is possible, keep her in the moment, in this three-dimensional world where people express affection without the use of emoticons. Form a support network around her (if the person is a minor, insist she see a counselor with expertise in eating disorders), so that she will not go in search of her own in a world where up is down and food is foe and illness is honor. Awareness may not equal prevention in all cases, but it is a step in the right direction, and we cannot afford to be ignorant.

Our world is changing, and if we want to make a difference, we’ve got to keep up. Mental illness, like everything else, has gone high-tech.

Picking Up Where We Left Off

2010-01-21T17:28:00.000-08:00

Last weekend was amazing. My son and I flew (or rather, were flown) to Boston to be with a dear friend of mine, Nancy, as she made a public profession of her Christian faith through the act of baptism. It was a very special, emotionally-electric reunion for my friend and I, having not seen one another in 13 years. We met under unconventional circumstances, and both of our lives have done 180-degree turnarounds in the past decade or so, and so this reunion was interesting, finding us both in completely different modes than when we'd last been together.

And yet, there was no awkwardness. No pretense. No need to get used to one another again. We fell into one another's arms at the airport, got some giggles out of our system, and then seemed to pick up our friendship right where we'd left off, with a flippant "So, anyway . . . "

It was very cool. Our connection seemed to transcend the time that's passed. It was as though we'd been together even while we'd been apart. And it made me think about Jesus.

I have this idea of what my arrival in Heaven will be like. I don't believe I'll have to stand in line at the pearly gates with my "Admit One" pass, waiting for Peter to stamp my hand. My Bible tells me that "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord" -- in other words, my last breath here will be my first breath there. And somehow I get the feeling that when I fall at Jesus' feet, it will be a bit like when I fell into Nancy's arms -- as if we'd been together all the time we'd been apart.

Now, I know I'm stretching things a bit; seeing an old friend surely cannot begin to compare to seeing the savior of my soul face-to-face for the very first time. Don't get me wrong; I am in no way trying to minimize or humanize the unfathomable magnitude of that moment. I'm only trying to wrap my mind around something in the here and now that might help me to glimpse just a wee bit of what I'll feel when the most blessed reunion of all takes place.

I'd held Nancy in my heart all those years, and so being in the same room with her didn't feel new or weird or forgotten. It felt only natural. And that's how I believe it will be when I am in the same room (as it were, since God is not or never has been confined by time or space) as my Lord. It will be amazing. Stunning. It will feel too good to be true. And yet, it will be only natural. As if it were the plan all along.

Our relationships on Earth are meant to be a model of our relationship to God. God Himself is relational -- before there was an "us" there was a Him, and even then He was not alone. God said, "Let Us make man in Our image" -- speaking to the other members of the Trinity. Relationship was at work, even before there were people with whom to relate. Is it any wonder God places such value on the importance of relationships?

I left Boston a very grateful girl. Grateful for friendship and common ground and heart connections. Grateful to know that I am loved by one who knows me on a heart level, and in whose presence I could be myself from the very moment I stepped off the plane.

It's only a teeny, one-dimensional thumbnail picture of what that other Great Reunion promises, but I am grateful for the foretaste of what I cannot otherwise begin to imagine.

Christmas: A Fresh Celebration

2009-12-18T13:39:00.001-08:00

I've always loved the Christmas season a bit more than most folk. This is not news. Most of my friends know that I bust out the Carpenters "Christmas Portrait" album sometime in September and that I cry on December 26th, every single year. I've been known to celebrate Christmas in July, just to get through the year until the "real" Christmas season comes back around. I wear vanilla perfume all year long because, frankly, I enjoy smelling like a big ol' Christmas cookie.

I've always assumed my giddiness over the yuletide (and just what is a yuletide, anyway? Someone enlighten me?) had to do with my December 24th birthday. But this year -- this year, more than any other year -- I can attest to another reason entirely. It has to do with a birthday celebration, yes -- but certainly not my own.

I've been following Jesus since I was fifteen years old. In churchy speak, I've been "walking with the Lord" or "serving Christ" or "living the life." In truth, for about sixteen years or so, I was going through the motions to a certain extent. We all do it; it's easy to fall into a comfy little nest of complacency after many years of living the Christian life. There's a cooling off process that happens if we're not especially diligent about fanning the flames of our passion. For me, it happened gradually, for reasons that felt out of my control. A divorce. A financial crunch. A sales career that kept me spinning my wheels at the office every Sunday (oops; there went the Sabbath) for years. Oh, I still loved Jesus. Passionately, even, at times. I worshiped in my car, at the piano, on the rare instance when life rocked my boat enough to bring me to my knees in search of the holy intimacy I once enjoyed. But there was little forward motion, little momentum.

God's fault? Not quite. Ever taken a long, hot bath, and gotten absorbed by a book as you lay in the tub? By the time you're twenty pages into the plot, distracted by the drama of the story, you're sitting in lukewarm water. And you never even noticed the temp was dropping.

I got lazy. My passionate heart for Christ -- the same heart that burned to know Him more fully at the age of fifteen -- cooled off a bit. No one would have known it; I still looked the part. I still prayed for others and talked about my faith and I even read a challenging Christian Living book once in a while. I went to Bible study. I did my homework. I regurgitated spiritual-sounding answers that sometimes inspired other ladies in my group, so I must have been "walking the walk" -- right? Christmas remained my favorite season for all those lukewarm years, and I wrote dramas that moved people at Christmas time, so I must have been "living the life" -- right?

Not so much. I stopped pursuing God. I stopped chasing after Him with the urgency I once had. I prayed faithfully, but not expectantly. My convictions slipped a little. The world began to feel more and more like home, and Heaven began to feel more like a distant dream and less like the place where my citizenship rests. But I didn't much notice. Metaphorically speaking, I was sitting in a lukewarm bathtub, engrossed in the drama of the story going on around me, more so than in the story going on within me.

In the past year and a half or so, God has been draining my lukewarm tub. I sat shivering for a while, wondering why He was being so mean. Why He seemed to be so mad at me. Why I couldn't get comfortable anymore.

I had a little temper tantrum. I pulled out all my old coping mechanisms, and abused them blatantly in the sight of God, daring Him to do anything about it.

He responded with mercy. Unbelievable.

I have learned more about God in the past eighteen months than I had ever known about Him before. I've gotten to know more of His character. I've seen more of His heart. I've understood more of His word, and -- get this -- how it applies to me. To me! Me, who blames God when her life falls apart. Me, who stops pursuing God even as He so relentlessly pursues me. Me, who had lost sight of the real reason why Christmas makes her so giddy.

It's because of Jesus, kids. He's the reason for the joy in my heart at Christmas -- because He's the reason for the joy in my heart, period. And this year, knowing His heart a bit better than before (He is "slow to anger, and abounding in love" . . . He is "everlasting" . . . He is the One who "sticks closer than a brother" . . . He is the One whose "grace is sufficient for me" and whose "strength is made perfect in my weakness"), my celebration feels more joyful than ever.

Christmas carols have deeper meaning. "O come let us adore Him"? You'd better believe it. "Long lay the world in sin and error pining / Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth"? My thoughts exactly. "Radiant beams from Thy holy face / With the dawn of redeeming grace"? Redeeming grace, indeed. No wonder I'm giddy.

I'm celebrating afresh this year. Nothin' lukewarm about it. No "holiday tree" for this ol' girl -- bring on the CHRISTMAS. I'm celebrating the birth of my savior -- Emmanuel, "God with us." And it does my heart so much good, next year I just might start in August.

What I've Learned in 2009 . . .

2009-11-22T13:02:00.000-08:00

Jeans are neither my enemy nor my friend. Jeans are not meant to change my body shape, minimize my butt, or make me taller. Their sole purpose on earth is to prevent nakedness from the waist down. Period.

Perhaps the reason so many of my friends are turned off by church is because church people have done a crummy job of representing a holy God to a hurting world. And perhaps my new year’s resolution should have more to do with remedying that than with eating less carbs.

Fact: Sometimes mediocre writers get published. Fact #2: Sometimes amazingly talented writers remain overlooked by the publishing world. Fact #3: both of these things kinda stink.

It is perfectly acceptable to be 33 years old and single. Heck, it’s even okay to be 33 years old and be happy with being single. It’s also acceptable to completely change one’s mind about that, and I will be sure to keep you posted.

Drama is conflict, and conflict is necessary to good storytelling. And, as much as I have lived my life to avoid conflict at all costs, being a writer will eventually force me to embrace it.

God is more than able to open doors that no man can open, and He delights in using the foolish things (and people) of the world to humble the wise.

No matter how much of a grammar and punctuation rock star you think you are, a good editor will show you the error of your ways.

Harboring unforgiveness is like drinking poison and then waiting for the other person to die.

Kids hear and absorb everything their parents do and say. Everything.

I talk too much. I need to do something about that. I’m sure there’s a reason why God gave us all two ears and only one mouth.

Noodles must be added to homemade chicken noodle soup last.

None of us have it all together. Especially not the people who look as though they do.

People who say they don’t care what people think about them are usually desperate to have other people think they don’t care what people think about them.

When you write a memoir, always change first names to protect the innocent. Because, chances are, by the time your book is released, you will have come back into contact with every single person whom you wrote about. (Thanks, Facebook!)

Some cats like veggie burgers, celery, soy milk, and coffee. (Or, at least one does. )

For as long as Liberty is alive and living in my home, I will never again be allowed to lay on my right side. She is a left-sided cat. Period.

Imitrex doesn’t work for my headaches. Zomig doesn’t work for my headaches. Advil Migraine no longer works for my headaches. Five Hour Energy works like magic for my headaches. Live and learn.

Even if your friend has been dead for five years, you will still have moments where you completely forget this and you’ll reach for your phone to call her when a certain song comes on over the speakers in Applebee’s.

Sometimes words are overrated. It’s impossible to say the wrong thing when you simply hug someone instead of saying anything at all.

There is no joy equal to the feeling of taking someone by the hand and walking them toward Jesus. Evangelism doesn’t mean what I thought it meant. It means doing life the way Jesus did it, with boldness, tenderness, and authenticity, and presenting the truth in love. The “ministry of reconciliation” is for every believer, even those of us who have been scared to death of it.

I do not like beer, dark chocolate, or bleu cheese – and I probably never will.

I will probably never again be a coloratura soprano or a size one. And I’ll just have to deal.

Sometimes kindness shocks the heck outta people. We’ve learned not to expect it. Kindness goes further (farther? Ack!) now than it ever did, because it so obviously sets us apart from a hostile society.

And probably the MOST important thing I have learned in 2009: I still have a lot to learn.

(To be continued . . . )

Words Are Overrated

2009-11-01T21:12:00.000-08:00

As a writer, I love words. I like to play with them, using words as colors and textures upon the blank canvas of a page. I like the weight of words, the way they echo in the mind after they've registered. Words are powerful. Words are irretractable. "Words kill, words give life; they're either poison or fruit -- you choose." (Proverbs 18:21, MSG) We need to handle words with care, mindful of their power both to wound and to heal.

And sometimes, we need to shut up and forego them completely.

We've all had them -- those electric moments shared with another human being, where words suddenly seem so glaringly inefficient. Sometimes it's a knowing glance across a crowded room, sometimes it's a tearful embrace inside the viewing room of a funeral home. There are those moments, whatever their setting or circumstance, that are simply better for their silence.

I shared a moment with a friend today, wherein I knew I was part of something bigger than words. It was one of those times where tears spoke volumes and a good tight hug, the kind that lasts a while, was the only appropriate way to truly respond in love.

It seems to me that brokenness begets brokenness. In the face of one who is brave enough to remove her mask and break down in a sincere expression of human fragility, we become aware of our inability to say the right thing. We admit to ourselves that we are not clever, eloquent or wise. Humility comes upon us as we recognize ourselves in that broken person, and we realize that perhaps the best way to love them in that moment is not to mentor them but to meet them, right where they are -- to come alongside them and sit with them in brokenness.

I guess I'm learning. As much as I love words, I admit that they are often overrated. Because today, as I sat with my friend in her brokenness, I found I had no need for them at all.

Bad Day / Good Lesson

2009-10-27T20:29:00.000-07:00

I am, for the most part, an optimist. Call it innocence, call it a Pollyanna attitude, heck, call it naivete -- but I am, generally speaking, a glass-half-full type of gal. Usually.

Not today. I had a bad day. They can't all be winners; I'm human, after all. I get grumpy and mopey and tempted to set my Facebook status to: "Jena hath the blueth." Today was one of those days.

It was stupid, really. I saw some images of myself that I thought were awful, and I was too lazy to get a handle on my self-talk and the whole thing quickly spiraled into a lively little internal rendition of "Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I'll go eat worms." I think the whole process took about forty seconds or so, and THUD -- just like that, my spirits hit the floor. Fickle, these silly human-being emotions of ours. One minute, we're humming; the next minute, we have the blueth.

The thing that was frustrating about the whole deal was that this is so not new to me. I've been down this road before, and pulling myself out of these such potholes "should" be a snap by now. So, take the depression and self-pity and then pile a little guilt on top, and you have a recipe for a pretty bleak day.

UNLESS . . .

Unless you take isolation out of the mix. Which, because God is merciful, I was able (or forced?) to do. As God would have it today, I ended up in a discussion with a dear friend of mine, a friend whom I recently had the privilege of taking by the hand and walking toward Christ. And today this friend -- this friend who is now a sister (insert chills here) -- happened to be in the right place at the right time, and I confided in her, from the trenches. I was real. I told her what was up, what the struggle was, how silly I felt about the whole thing. And she responded in the most beautiful way I could have imagined.

She fed me the word of God.

She with whom I spent those hours several months ago, encouraging her with scripture, did me the ultimate favor of reminding me of those very transforming, life-giving truths. She searched her Bible and sought out wisdom for me, applicable to the battle I was fighting between my ears. And she did a darn good job of it.

And gradually, assuredly, my perspective was renewed. There is something very cool about the reciprocity of it all -- the counselee becoming the counselor during a time of need, the people-needing-people, the word picture of iron-sharpening-iron (Proverbs 17:17). This beautiful design of reciprocity and inter-dependance reminds me that we're all in this together, that ain't none of us got it all figured out.

If all's well that ends well, my bad day isn't turning out so bad after all. Because as I go to bed tonight, my heavy heart is lighter and I'm no longer singing myself glum lullabies about eating worms. Rather, I am singing about the amazing, gigantic God who sees into our hearts and knows just what we need, and about the very cool talent He has for placing just the right people in our path.

Nope. I don't have it all figured out. But I know the One who does.

Seeing Myself in the RAW

2009-10-19T13:40:00.000-07:00

We all know that a picture is worth a thousand words; we're visual learners, us human beings, and we like images. We like color and detail and brightness and contrast.

Sometimes.

Last week, I had a two-hour photo shoot for a book I've written. This was a completely new experience for me; never have I "played" for hours in front of an assembly of photographic equipment and smiled for over 400 photos. (That's a lot of "say cheese!") Once I got over my insecurity, it was pretty fun, really. I felt like a magazine model, and I may or may not have created a little fantasy in my head about having to hurry up and get this cover shoot done before hopping the next plane to Milan for Fashion Week.

My photographer, Peter, made it easy enough to smile for the camera, as he is also a Broadway actor who can do an uncanny impression of Christopher Walken, which made me laugh until I spit and snorted. (We didn't use those shots.)

We were several frames into the shoot before he turned his camera around to show me an image on the LCD screen. "I mean, look at that," he said, kissing the tips of his fingers. "Is that gorgeous, or what?" I took a step forward, leaned over, and looked at the little screen. And silently gasped.

For lack of a gentler term, I looked. . . old. I couldn't understand it; I had just had my photo taken the day before, with my friend's digital camera, and I hadn't looked old. What had happened to me in twenty-four hours?

Peter later explained to me that when a professional photographer takes a picture of his subject, the camera takes in every aspect of the person -- every bit of visual information -- and presents the image completely unprocessed, in "RAW" format. The image is then processed and retouched later; shadows are adjusted, color and skin tone are corrected, etc. Evidently, our modern-day digital cameras do this automatically, which is why the images we see of ourselves on them are kinder and gentler than the one I was seeing on Peter's camera screen.

I thought about this throughout the evening, each time Peter showed me a proof and kissed his fingertips and said "Stunning!" or "Lovely!" or "Gorge!" I wondered how he could say such things, with my undereye circles and crow's feet and laugh lines so naked and exposed on his LCD screen. I figured either he was being extremely kind or he was rather full-of-it.

And then it hit me: he was already "seeing" the finished product in his mind's eye. He wasn't seeing the flaws on the screen; after hundreds of photo sessions, he had learned to see the images not for what they were, but for what they would be when he was finished with them.

The allegory wasn't lost on me. I realized then that this is how God sees us. He looks at us and sees all -- the flaws, the imperfections, the problem areas -- and yet He is able to look beyond what is to what will be. He peers into our hearts, and nothing is hidden from Him. Almighty God is always able to see us in "RAW" format -- like it or not. But His vision isn't limited to that. Just as Peter saw beauty in my raw photos, envisioning what they would be once he was done working on them, God sees beauty in us, despite our weaknesses and blemishes. He sees what we will be when He is done working on us.

I imagine that Peter's work is endlessly easier than God's, since photos don't fight the process like people do. Peter's work on my raw photos probably took a couple of hours. God's work on my raw heart is taking considerably longer to complete. I am grateful that God doesn't charge by the hour.

All in all, it was a humbling experience, even after my little Milan fantasy. If you have an opportunity to see yourself in the "RAW", I encourage you to be a visionary and cut yourself some slack. . .

God isn't finished with you, either.

Gratitude is Beautiful

2009-09-30T13:50:00.001-07:00

I'm standing in line at the pharmacy, waiting for some drugs, and I glance to my left. There she is. Perfect Woman. I know her at first sight. It's the hair that gives her away -- the waterfall of perfect blonde spiral curls, swishing and swooshing this way and that when she moves her head to look in my direction. I smile at her. I know what she's thinking: "Poor thing. Look at that lifeless, straight hair. I really should count my blessings."

Okay, maybe not. For all I know, maybe she was thinking about the horrible illness that had brought her to the pharmacy in the first place. Maybe she was thinking about an argument she had with her husband or the balance in her checking account or the chicken she needed to defrost for dinner. But I was certain that she wasn't thinking what she should have been thinking: "Thank you, God, for giving me the most gorgeous hair ever."

I came back home from the pharmacy and I tweeted about running into Perfect Woman standing there in line. And within minutes, my friend Wanda who has just finished her final round of chemotherapy and is awaiting the re-growth of her own hair, made a comment about my ugly jealousy: "I'm jealous of a Chia Pet!" Yikes. Good point, there, Wanda. My perspective is duly renewed.

I'm learning, you see. Learning to be grateful for what I have (including my boring, straight blonde hair) as well as what I don't have (including cancer). Gratitude, as it turns out, is quite attractive in a person. I even dare say that gratitude is beautiful.

So, back on the wagon I go. And tomorrow morning when I blow-dry my head of ho-hum hair, I'll think of Perfect Woman and I might feel a tiny twinge of envy (maybe a bit like a knife, twisting between the ribs), but then hopefully, I'll remember to thank God for His amazing love and mercy toward me. And I'll be grateful. And gratitude is beautiful.

I wonder if the people standing beside me in line at the pharmacy will notice.

Nothing to Hide Behind

2009-09-22T10:43:00.001-07:00

You've had this nightmare, I know you have: You walk into an office meeting (or your study hall room, depending on your life stage), sit down, and smile. You glance around the room from face to horrified face, and suddenly gasp as it occurs to you that you've forgotten your clothing and have arrived naked. Utterly, completely, birthday-suit naked.

Usually, this is when you awaken in a cold sweat and begin mentally conducting your heart back into its normal rhythm: ONE two three four, ONE two three four... (Or, if you don't awaken, this could also be the part of the dream when the phone in your hand turns into a banana and you peel it and feed it to your boss who is now a monkey sitting in the office chair beside you and is wearing lipstick and clapping along to "We Are the Champions." But, usually, it's the former.)

I'm sure some people like being naked in front of a crowd, and some of them make darn good money performing on the VMA awards. But for most of us, it's a horrifying prospect. It is, in fact, one of the most popular reasons for wearing clothes. But there are different kinds of 'naked', of course. There is the physical, literal sense of nakedness, as we so courageously imagined in the previous paragraphs, but there is also the sense of nakedness that comes from sharing our hearts, speaking our truth, and letting down our guard (and sometimes our hair). It is that vulnerability, that sense of being so very exposed, that can be not only horrifying but healing as well.

I've written a memoir, which is old news to some who will read this. It has a release date of May 1st, 2010, and I am only now becoming aware of how my life will change after that date on my timeline. If it accomplishes what memoirs are intended to accomplish, it will let people -- strangers, mostly -- into parts of my private world, my theretofore-private past, and even a few of my private thoughts. How's that for feeling naked in front of the world?

And it's okay. I'm cool with it. Go figure. I, who brings a sweatshirt with me everywhere I go so I can drape it over my legs whenever I sit down and thereby have something to hide behind, am cool with it. I who make a beeline for my towel the very nano-second I get out of the pool lest anyone see me, for Pete's sake, am cool with this. I actually think I can suck it up, for the glory of God, and deal.

Why? Because I seem to be discovering that only when I become vulnerable do I become truly effective as an encourager. Life is one big show-and-tell, but showing is ever more effective than telling alone.

When my kid was struggling to form his letters correctly in kindergarten, I told him about how I struggled with dyslexia when I was little, and I showed him one of my old papers from school. And I watched his face as he stared at my backward letters a minute, possibly thinking, "Huh. She can write now..."

I distinctly remember the day when the shame of being a divorced Christian woman left me. I read an article written by someone whose situation had been similar to mine. She shared her heart and her story in those 350 words, and suddenly I wasn't alone. It was like my self-affixed scarlet letter peeled off of my chest and fell to the floor. And I thought, "Huh. She's okay now..."

No one likes the idea of becoming vulnerable, at least not at first. But as I prepare myself to stand before friends and strangers alike, with nothing to hide behind, I get a little excited at the thought of how God might choose to use my vulnerability to reach people. I might even have to learn to leave my sweatshirt at home.

From the Heart: Interview with Diana's Client Jena Morrow

2009-09-12T23:26:00.000-07:00

From the Heart: Interview with Diana's Client Jena Morrow

Stress Will Make You Ugly

2009-09-01T13:07:00.001-07:00

Stress is a killer. Stress will make you do stupid things, say even stupider things, make lousy decisions, and lose sleep. But did you know it will also make you ugly?

Now that I have your attention, listen up.

Last week, I noticed a weird lump behind my ear, that hurt like heck. So I ignored it, because that's what I do when things bother me. The next day, I awakened to three more weird painful lumps, which made turning my head and swallowing quite difficult. So I ignored it, because surely it was nothing and I was being a big baby. (Are we seeing a pattern yet?) Finally, my friend Anne noticed that my hand kept flying up to my neck and my head while we were talking to one another, and asked me what the heck was wrong with me. And I, of course, was taken aback -- because nothing was wrong with me. Nothing is ever wrong with me. Ever.

Are you ready to smack me yet? Me, too, in retrospect.

So, because my friends love me and freak out on me when I refuse to be sensible and take care of myself, Anne had her daughter Christi, a physician assistant, look me over. Christi felt around on my neck and said "yikes" a few times, and then looked at the huge bug-bite on my temple and made a funny face and suggested that I might want to call my doc the next day.

When I walked into my doc's office the next morning, she had me hop up on her table and she laughed a litte under her breath as she slipped into a pair of rubber gloves. "Nice bedside manner," I quipped at the internist who feels like an old friend. "Do you laugh at all your patients?"

She shook her head and went straight to poking around on my oozing bug-bite thing. "Only you, Jena girl... So, you been a little stressed-out lately, huh?"

"Who says?" I asked quickly, wheels turning in my head as to who could have been talking to her. (Oh yeah... did I mention that stress can also lead to paranoia?)

"Your body, that's who says!" she poked around a bit more, then threw the gloves into a bin and felt my lumpy neck with her warm play-doh hands. "Nice... very nice..."

"What?"

"Your lymph nodes are like golfballs."

"I know," I said. "Gross, huh?"

"Yeah," she agreed. "Super gross. You have Herpes."

"What?!?"

"Herpes Zoster," she said, "Not simplex. It's different. What's all the stress about?"

"There's a connection?" I asked, still reeling at the word 'herpes.'

"Ohhhh, yeah," the doc said. "Your immune system is shot. Stress will do that to you."

I hung my head, feeling like a little bit of a dork. And a tad guilty, too. How, after thirty-two years on the planet, have I not learned by now to better manage stress? Or to at least admit to myself that I'm not above its influence? And when, oh when, will I learn to tell myself the truth once in a while, instead of ignoring my every need like some sort of stubborn martyr?

Herpes Zoster is Shingles, by the way -- a viral infection of the nerve endings. I have a head of scaly, stinging red lesions and nerves that feel like they're being tased with stun guns. It's Day Six now, and I am starting to look a lot better, but I was downright homely for a while there. Which brings us back to my thesis: Stress can make you ugly.

So chill when you can, kids. Don't sweat the small stuff. Try not to freak out... and if you do, at least admit it to yourself, so you can try to change. As for me, now that I've allowed stress to make me ugly (temporarily, I hope), I think I'll try a little harder to listen to the words of the master: "Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes." (Matthew 6:34, MSG)

I'll just have to consider it part of my beauty regimen.

The Day the Cuteness Died

2009-08-21T07:48:00.001-07:00

Little kids know they're cute, and it doesn't take long for them to really get a handle on the sort of power with which their innate cuteness imbues them. Most kids know how to use the puppy dog eyes and the crocodile tears to their advantage, and many have a favorite aunt or uncle or friend-of-a-parent wrapped tightly and mercilessly around their tiny little finger. Cuteness is some powerful stuff.

Until it wears off.

My aunt Kathie, known to me as "Aunt Kas", used to adore me. She noogied me and hugged me and kissed me, and just generally ate me alive whenever we went to her house for the holidays. The routine was always the same; I'd run ahead of my mom to ring the doorbell next to the big French doors of her home, and I'd listen to Kelly the Collie barking and the sound of footsteps growing closer. Then, Aunt Kas would swing open the door and make an exaggeratedly surprised and delighted face, as if she hadn't known I was coming, and scoop me up into her arms as she exclaimed, always, "It's Jena Jo!"

That went on for about five or six years. For five or six years, on some level, I thought I was really something. I never thought I was particularly cute -- I had a goofy eye that wandered when I was tired and made me see double, and funky reddish hair that never seemed to stay neatly braided, and a perfectly normal little-kid body that always seemed, to me, a bit too round in the belly and butt -- but Aunt Kas did, and for those five or six years, I rather enjoyed it.

Then something snapped. I don't know what it was -- I don't recall growing a hump on my back or a third eye or breaking out in a contagious rash -- but after age six, the cuteness must have worn off. I distinctly remember the Christmas Eve when it happened. I stood there, at her big French doors, waiting to be swept off of my Mary Janes and called adorable. Instead, Aunt Kas opened the door, smiled a little, squeezed my shoulder with one hand and said, "Hi, Jen." That was it. That was all I got. I had lost my touch. The glamor of the Cute Life was gone, and I was just a six-year-old kid with a wandering eye and messy braids. Ho hum.

This sort of thing still happens to adults, unfortunately. Human beings have rather short attention spans, and it seems we fall in and out of attractions with the shifting of the breeze. Just this week, I read a friend's post about her boyfriend of three years who had decided she just didn't do it for him anymore. She just wasn't enough. Her appeal had worn off, as far as he was concerned. I have several friends whose spouses decided, after many years, that they wanted a change -- they had a taste for a different flavor, so to speak.

Ouch. No one like rejection -- neither the insecure six-year-old or the middle-aged exec who seems to live above the threshold of emotional fragility. We want to know that we are loved. Wanted. Desired. Adored. Appreciated. Valued. Cherished. And we want to know that our status as such is not subject to change. Unfortunately, few things in this life offer that sort of insurance policy.

"I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love..." (Romans 8:39, The Message)

There we go. There's something stable, something changeless and solid and unshakable. There's a love that isn't contingent upon my cuteness. I can't make myself endearing enough to earn it, and I can't become so ugly as to lose it. It is what it is, because God is who He is. Period.

Had I known this love when I was six years old, it might not have rocked my world so much when I outgrew my cuteness and lost the power I thought it had given me. And if you know it now, maybe you can rest in this same assurance: You are loved... and your status as the beloved is not subject to change.

We're All In This Together

2009-08-17T07:03:00.000-07:00

At my church, whenever we have a baby or child dedication ceremony, we have made it our practice to say to the parents, as a congregation, "We promise to withhold any and all judgment of this child and his parents while he is being raised." That part always puts a little lump in my throat, to be honest.

As a single parent, I tend to be a little hard on myself, a little overly self-criticial of my mommy skills (and general competency). As a mom, I'm so far from perfect that I often feel guilty even wearing the title of 'mother.' My kid, likewise, is not a perfect kid. Fortunately, though, I've yet to meet a perfect child, and this brings me a little comfort.

He's a good kid -- mostly kind, definitely tender-hearted, smart and quick and precocious and funny as all get-out. He can also be mouthy, selfish, bullheaded, stubborn and strong-willed. (I know those last three basically mean the same thing, but if you'd ever met Jaden, you would know that he deserves all three adjectives). It seems the proverbial apple indeed does not fall far from the tree.

There is no one on this earth I love more than my child. There is also no one on this earth who so regularly and effectively threatens to compromise my sanity. And I don't always handle myself like an adult, quite frankly.

Last Friday, for example, is a day that will go down in history as one of my less-stellar mommy moments -- one of the rare occasions when my child screamed at me and I, the rational superior adult with the advantage of a more evolved and developed handle on impulse control, chose to just scream right back at him. It was not a moment I wanted any of you to know about, honestly.

And yet here I am writing about it. Why? Because I think we need to be real with one another about how hard this parenting gig really is. None of us have it all together. Not even those friends of mine whom I always tell myself are much better parents than I am.

Here's the cold, hard fact: kids are human beings. Kids have rules to follow (or, at least, they should; they need them, and secretly want them on some level). Kids can make choices. If we are doing our jobs as parents, the choices will have consequences, whether positive or negative, and we will let those consequences befall them. Kids have free will, from day one. And that means they will embarrass us at some point. And they will push our buttons. And they might even wear us down so far that we scream, even those of us who are self-declared "scream-free parents."

It hasn't happened to me often, but it has happened. And it might have even happened to you. And now that I've admitted it, you can, too. Even if only to yourself.

Look, parenting is hard. So let's choose to withhold judgment of one another and of one another's children. Let's do what we can to encourage one another and keep it real. We're all in this together.

Tattling... in Jesus' Name

2009-08-03T06:54:00.000-07:00

You know how it is when you have someone in your life who weighs heavy on your heart, whose face pops up on the post-it note of your brain whenever you stop to pray, your concern for whom can keep you up late at night? You know how it is when you have several someones in that same category? Yeah, me too.

So, late last night, I go to God, like usual, and I start blabbing about my friends. I tell Him everything He may be missing as He observes them from His lifeguard chair. I tell Him about their behaviors, their slip-ups, their desperate need for Him. I ask Him to please intervene, step up, DO something, for Pete's sake... um, in Jesus' name, of course.

I'm halfway through my spiritual rant, working up some good momentum, starting to "feel" like I'm really interceding in love, really making a difference, really getting through. God's gonna come through; He's gonna be on top of things now. Good thing I prayed. Right?

And then, almost audibly, I hear: "Shhhhhhhhhh."

Excuse me? I start in again. "Anyway, God, would you please get a hold of so-and-so, grab them by the heart and--"

Again: "Shhhhhhhhhhh."

What the... I'm praying here! I'm trying to be spiritual! And God is shushing me? But it was unmistakable. Every time I started in again to pray, I sensed it. It wasn't condemning (it never is, when it's really God)... in fact, it was reassuring. It was as if I could hear the spirit of God say, "I know, Jena. You're not telling me anything I don't already know. I've got this; I'm on it. You can sleep now."

I don't sense it when I am praying for someone's physical healing, as I have been for a pastor in our area. I don't sense it when I am praying for people who are being victimized or persecuted. I only sense it when I am tattling. It seems our parents were right; no one likes a tattletale. Not even God.

He knows what His kids are up to. That whole eyes-in-the-back-of-the-head thing, that we thought our mothers invented -- He's got that down. He sees all; nothing gets past Him. Nothing is beyond Him. No one hides from Him -- no one. (Sigh... not even me.)

So if you have those people in your life, weighing heavy on your heart, maybe you can take some comfort in my tale of tattling. Maybe if you listen for it, you'll hear it too: "Shhhhhhhh. I know. Rest."

I guess we might as well.

This Curious Condition of Motherhood

2009-07-26T21:38:00.001-07:00

I am absolutely exhausted, and I promised several well-meaning friends that I would go to sleep, but sleep is not coming easily right now. And all because of the fifty-pound person beside me in my bed tonight.

My seven-year-old son, Jaden, has become quite sick over the past few days, and just today developed a few new symptoms of concern to me. A physician friend of mine was kind enough to perform a little impromptu examination a while ago, which -- I thought -- set my mind at ease. So, why am I not sleeping soundly? In a word, motherhood.

Motherhood seems to be the curious condition of feeling as though a part of your heart has broken off and is walking around outside your body. As this part of your heart grows and matures, it begins to need you less and less (and more and more, paradoxically, in some ways), and you have to learn the art of the gentle, gradual release, even though it goes against all that is screaming within your heart (the part of your heart that has remained inside your own body).

Before I was someone's mother, people spoke of it, this curious condition, and I thought that I understood. Yeah, I know, I thought... So it's a love like none other. Got it. But it's not a love that is understood in theory -- only in practice. And, frankly, it's a little scary to love this way... This irrationally, this unconditionally, this completely. To pick a rose you ask your hands to bleed... to love a child, you ask your heart, at times, to do the same.

It's just an infection, this thing my kid has. A nasty cough, a high fever, some very swollen glands. And yet this love I have for him is so fierce that it bares its Mama Bear claws at the very thought of a threat to his wellbeing. It's an odd feeling to be this invested, on a heart level, in a person. It's the hardest, most all-consuming, exhausting, wonderful thing you can imagine. It makes the heart both swell with joy and ache in pain, all at once sometimes. And I only have ONE kid.

So I look at him, lying here in a bed that is not his own, an arsenal of medicines on the table beside his suddenly small, fragile-looking little body... and I realize that I am helpless. I can only do so much to relieve him -- whether he is fighting an infection or fighting a bully... whether he is choosing a toy or choosing a major... whether he is hurting or choosing to inflict hurt. He is only mine in the sense that I am currently responsible for raising and nurturing him. When all is said and done, he is a human being, and human beings to do not belong to other human beings. They belong only to God.

So, in the hopes of getting a little sleep, I'm returning him tonight to His rightful owner. I am asking Him to have his way, to do His job, to give me to the grace to do mine... which, as Jaden's mom, is to give my best human effort to nurture, teach, train, inspire, guide, and protect. And, having done all of these things, after midnight, to entrust him to the One who can do everything else for him that I cannot.

Don't Drink the Poison!

2009-07-20T13:41:00.000-07:00

Late last night, I enjoyed a 90-minute cyber-chat with a new friend. What started out with "hey / hey" soon became a moving, challenging, and very candid discussion on the touchy subject of forgiveness. I was excited to be able to share some of what God has been teaching me lately, through His word and through the wise counsel of others, and through Rick Warren's "40 Days of Love" study. The 90 minutes whizzed by, fingers flying across our keyboards as we dug deeper.

As I see it, here's the deal with forgiveness: as followers of Jesus, it's not so much an option, really. It's a non-negotiable, a mandate, a must-do... but it's also an invitation. When we are able to truly forgive others who have wronged us (and we have all been wronged, if we are alive on planet Earth), we enable ourselves to enter into peace -- God's peace. After all, when we harbor bitterness and unforgiveness toward another person, it is usually we who suffer, not the unforgiven. Holding onto unforgivess, so the saying goes, is like drinking poison -- and then waiting for the other person to die.

And furthermore, chosing to forgive a person does not let that person off the hook, as we may tend to assume. God is just; wrongdoing will be addressed, one way or another -- but it is HIS to address, not ours. When we forgive, we take the offender off of our "hook" and place them on God's "hook" where they belong. Let Him deal with them; He always does.

Now, this is where is can get tempting; we want to pray, "Git 'em, Lord! Sic 'em! Shatter their teeth upon the rocks!" (to borrow King David's request)... but we have to be prepared for God to have His way, whatever that may be. He may choose to bring about justice and give them a dose of "reality discpline" -- after all, vengeance belongs to the Lord. But... He may also choose to be merciful on them. Not what we want to hear, but it's always a real possibility. And honestly -- how many times has God chosen to be merciful toward us, when what we deserved was unyielding justice?

Anyway. It's a subject that could be discussed for hours, and I would probably enjoy such a discussion. Holding grudges seems to be an innate hangup for human beings; we can all relate. But there comes a time when we wise up and stop drinking the poison -- or, we die of it, one way or another.

The Beauty of Brokenness

2009-06-29T21:23:00.000-07:00

I love Mosaics. I love to look at each tiny little piece of broken tile, and try to see it first as separate from the whole, as a fraction of the thing it once was. Did it used to have a life of its own, maybe as a vase or a plate, before it met its shattering fate and went on to become a vital component of a work of art? How did it break? Was it dropped, mishandled, intentionally destroyed for a larger purpose? I love that the pieces haven't been thrown away or wasted, but that the artist saw their remaining (or maybe enduring) value, and picked them up and said, "I can use you."

Mosaics are cool, because they are a neat little visual allegory of the way God works. Human beings, it seems, are even more prone to breaking than ceramic or clay. When I think of all the people who have most touched my life, whose words and deeds and legacies have helped to form and shape me, I am taken by the realization of something they all seem to have in common: they are, or were, decidedly imperfect, "broken on the wheels of living," as Brennan Manning has said. They are works in progress, turning their messes into messages and their tests into testimonies. Some of them are, indeed, a bit rough around the edges, and I suspect that their creator and mine is okay with that.

People who have been through a bit of fire, who have lived and learned, who have shed some lifeblood and come out the better for it, are effortlessly inspirational. They don't have to try too hard to be pithy or poignant or witty or wise, because the fact that they are still here speaks volumes before they ever have to say a word. They have a wide-eyed wonder at having endured, having been spared, that is contagious.

They are the recovered addicts, the tenderhearted former bullies, the learning-disabled scholars, the wounded healers. Their lives speak, encouraging others to press on, to trust in the restorative hand and heart of God.

I remember an early concert given by the late Rich Mullins, the well-known Christian songwriter, wherein he reached for his guitar to play an acoustic ballad, and as he began to play, he started laughing and admitted, "This guitar is terminally out of tune, but I tend to think things are boring if they're really fine." The audience chuckled, because part of the appeal of Rich was that he was, in fact, quite rough around the edges. He didn't stop to tune the guitar; he started the song over again, still with the same out-of-tune instrument.

I like his style; Rich could appreciate the brokenness in both people and things, because he himself was admittedly broken. And maybe he was right; maybe pristine equals dull, and flawed equals interesting. And if that's the case, if all of us who are flawed and imperfect are more interesting and valuable for our brokenness, then maybe we can learn to embrace our shattered lives as a new kind of creation, like a mosaic. Maybe we can learn to be just a little bit more grateful for where we are, in light of where we were. Maybe we can remember that in our weakness, God's strength is made perfect. And maybe, just maybe, broken will become the new beautiful.

At Play in God's Creation

2009-06-16T23:10:00.000-07:00

When you are a seven-year-old boy with pent-up energy, a wild imagination, and a desire to do nothing more than run, wrestle, and swim, summertime can be either a welcome release or a supreme frustration. For my little Jaden, unfortunately, thus far it has been the latter. No one is around. Country Squire has become a ghost town this summer, leaving Jaden alone to play with his legos for an hour in the morning and then to mope and whine for the remaining eight hours until his friends come home from day camp.

Yesterday, he was a fairly good sport all day, tagging along with me on errand after errand and rolling his eyes quietly while I sat at the computer and attempted to get a little work done under his watchful eye. Sensing his unreleased energy pulsating just under the surface, I kept checking in:

"Would you like to go for a quick bike ride?"
(Only if my friends can go.)
"Are you hungry?"
(No. I'm bored.)
"Want me to turn on the sprinkler?"
(Only if you'll play with me. Otherwise, it's boring.)
"Would you like a drink?"
(MOM. What I would LIKE is for you to PLAY with me.)

I feel for the kid; I really do. I can imagine what a drag it must be to hang out with a thirty-two-year-old woman on a shoestring budget, when all you really want to do is get muddy and poke other sticky-fingered short people with plastic swords. On our lengthy car trips to the bank, the store, the office, I brought along Jaden's portable DVD player, hoping to take his mind off of what a bummer his young life is at the moment (they're very dramatic, seven-year-olds). He wanted nothing to do with it. He also showed zero interest in his KidzBop CD's, his Happy Feet soundtrack, or, once we got back home, his online netherworlds of Webkinz and ClubPenguin.

Finally, around six o'clock, I caved. He had squeezed himself into the too-tight mold of a mini-adult all day, and enough was enough. I left my projects and tasks partially-finished, whipped up PBJ and carrots and called it dinner, and tossed the kid back in the car. We were off to have some FUN, dang it.

We wound up at Delwood Park, a cool nearby nature preserve with a scattering of bright, shiny new playground equipment all over the place. But, just as he had shunned my bright shiny offerings of DVD players and up-tempo kid-friendly pop music, Jaden shunned also these fancy-schmancy playgrounds, and instead asked me to drive all the way down to the end of the park property, and park the car by the creek. "Let's go this way, Mom," he said, blue-gray eyes alight as he gazed toward the moving water. Then, looking down at his feet to remind himself of what shoes he had chosen, he asked, "And can I get wet?" And I, the cool, selectively-permissive mom that I have become, replied, "I guess."

I rolled up my jeans and followed my little adventurer into the creek, up to the ankle, then the knee. The water was clear; I could see the bottom, and kept my gaze several paces ahead of where I knew Jaden's was, as he waded in, the chilly water reaching the bottom of his butt. We looked for snails and tadpoles, found a really gross dead fish, pretended to be on a reality show about a mother and son struggling to survive in the wilderness for months at a time. Jaden found a strand of gold plastic mardi gras beads in the water and tied them to his belt-loop; this was our "treasure", and he, in character, told me that when we finally made it out of the wilderness, he was going to sell it in order to buy us a houseboat so we could live on the creek.

Thirty minutes into our little make-believe adventure in the creek, nature called, and I watched a mischievous smirk came across Jaden's mud-smeared face. "Mom?" he asked, "Can I pee in the woods?" And I, as ever the cool, selectively-permissive mother, sighed deeply and said, "I guess."

We never did make it to any of the fancy-schmancy playgrounds. It was still somewhat light out just before nine o'clock when we made our way back to the car, my sandals sloshing and squirting and Jaden's orange shorts muddied beyond the point of no return. We were wet, chilly, and riddled with bug-bites galore, and we had to sit on sweatshirts and towels on the way home to keep from christening the car seats with creek water.

I hadn't spent a dime. There was no general admission ticket price to get in. None of the things we found to play with required batteries or access codes or password protection. We were simply at play in God's creation, and this was good, not-so-clean fun.

And as we pulled out of the park and headed back home, my kid, whose day had included ten hours of utter boredom and two and a half hours in paradise, said to me, "Mom, I loved this day."

I'm Not Okay, You're Not Okay

2009-06-11T21:51:00.000-07:00

So I'm having one of those nights, one of those annoying, itchy nights where I find myself being good and honest with myself, about myself. I hate when I do this; I am ever so comfortable when I can remain deceived. But tonight, I can't seem to shake this conviction about one of my silly little "issues." It seems I've worked myself into a tizzy over the years, and developed a nasty little habit: "Hi, I'm Jena, and I idealize people."

It's horrible, really. I tend to see people as being infallible, incapable of falling short or messing up or going wrong. I've done it with my pastor and his wife, who brought me back to my senses when they reminded me that they -- yes, even they! -- argue sometimes and don't always see eye-to-eye. I've done it with a friend of mine who I pretty much assumed had the perfect life -- great clothes, doting husband, way-cool job -- who then ruined my mirage by going all human on me. In fact, if you're reading this and we know one another, I might even do it with you. I probably wouldn't be too hard-pressed to come up with three bullet points and a poem to support my argument that you are cooler than I am, better informed, more together. You're welcome.

But, see, I'm not doing you any favors by perceiving you this way. In fact, on the contrary, I'm cheating you. You might need help or prayer or a shoulder, and I won't be sensitive enough to offer you any of the above, because I will be over here assuming that you've got it all together. Sorry about that.

So, off I go to sleep, under layers of blankets and the heavy weight of conviction. The great thing about tomorrow is that is generally follows today, and brings with it a chance to change for the better. So, the goal for tomorrow: get real. Look around and take note of the human condition of imperfection and neediness, and recognize that it seems to have stricken us all.

Good night, my fellow ragamuffins.

Fiftysomething

2009-06-05T22:49:00.000-07:00

I recently heard Oprah say that life for a woman begins at fifty. (Of course, ten years ago she said the same thing about a woman turning forty... but whatever). Anyway, I think there may be some truth to that. Still, if that is true, I've got precisely eighteen years to kill before my life really begins, so I figure I'd better have a plan for the interim.

In my twenties, I made some mistakes. A few faux pas, an oops here and there. So, I've got my thirties to fix all those mistakes. In a word, my thirties shall be all about restoration (sounds good in theory, looks good in print). Then I'll turn forty, and my forties will be about enjoying the journey - walking my son through his teen years, taking he and his friends out for pizza Friday night after the game, chaperoning class trips along with my endearing soul-mate of a husband (role yet to be cast). And then finally, climactically, I will enter into my fifties, and I will have arrived. Ta-da!

Or something like that.I have a few very dear friends who happen to be women in their glorious Fifties - sagely in their wisdom, almost ethereal in their beauty. There is a stunning sort of beauty that seems to come from knowing better. It is a relaxed assurance that illuminates their faces with a certain elegance that cannot be feigned by the younger set - it can only be earned by putting in one's time. They have forged their way to this place of justified contentment, and now they are basking in it.

I love to look at their hands - feminine and yet worn with years of loving service. How many lunches have they made, how many tears have they dried, how many times have they folded in prayer for those whom they love? (I look at my own hands differently since I have become a mother. Our hands become magical, you know, when we use them to nurture children, whether our own or others' children whom we love. Suddenly our magic hands can fix toy trucks and budge sticky zippers and cut peanut butter sandwiches just right.)

Anyway, I may have another eighteen years to go before my life can officially begin at fifty, but parts of me seem to be getting a head start, starting with the head itself: today, yet another proud wiry white hair poked its way up out of the crowd of blonde ones, daring me to yank it out. I didn't. I suppose it's a right of passage.

On the flipside, last week I got pulled over for speeding on my way to the office, and for the first time in a while, I wasn't able to charm my way out of a ticket. I guess maturation does have its disadvantages...

Of Houses and Hearts

2009-06-05T22:45:00.000-07:00

About a year-and-a-half ago, I bought a house. A townhouse, actually, and an old tired one at that. It had plenty of room, three good sized bedrooms and two baths, great views of an open field, and a nice little yard with a swingset for my kid. Let's just say that it had all the makings of a really good home for my little miniature family, but it was obvious that it was going to need some real TLC before it would be anything I could be proud to call home.

The old vinyl floor in the kitchen and powder room was faded and worn, not to mention conspicuously outdated, with its tiny country-blue hearts and flowers. There was no microwave (which was inconvenient, since that happens to be the one kitchen appliance that I have mastered the use of), but only a sad-looking harvest gold extractor hood, which I knew would have to go immediately. The kitchen cabinets were original (meaning only two younger than I am myself), and despite layers of white paint, they screamed "replace me!" whenever I peered in their direction. The plain, flat insulated steel entry door was dented and scuffed and had no more character than a tiny peephole at eye level, and the staircase was guarded by an unsightly one-piece black wrought iron railing, which I promised myself would be the first thing I would update.

I bought and closed on the home in April, and immediately set to the task of bringing about my vision for my new aquisition. I saw much potential hiding in the ugliness contained in its four walls, and I told it so. "You will be beautiful one day... trust me," I said as I ran my hand along one of its scuffed and scarred dirty beige walls, stained with time. The obnoxious black railing came down and I hired a stair company to build a lovely oak-and-iron balustrade with basket and twist details. The nasty old vinyl floor was covered over with wood laminate, updating the kitchen instantly (the inside of the kitchen pantry was not re-floored, however, and now whenever I reach in for the Cheerios, I am reminded of my kitchen's past life). The harvest gold hood was ripped off and replaced with a nice microwave hood, finally enabling me to cook (or, at least, to re-heat). I had the entire home repainted, in earthy tones of khaki and sage (and of course, one room in all-American-boy-blue). I replaced the front door with a charming decorative door with an integrated leaded glass window. And then I stepped back and looked at what my tired, abused old home had become, and I saw that it was good. And, seeing that it was good, I gave the house my final mark of approval: I moved in and made it my home.

It is interesting to me, when I allow myself to wax philosophical for just a moment, the many ways in which the transformation and restoration of a home can be likened unto the transformation and restoration of a heart. Humor me a moment, and I'll try to explain...

My house was old, dirty, and kind of smelled like feet. It was obvious that it had been mistreated rather than nurtured and cared for properly, and because of this lack of proper care, it was tired and sad, and it wore that sadness on its walls like battle scars.Hearts are like that, aren't they? When a human heart is not nurtured or cared for or maybe when it has even been abused and mishandled, its sadness can also translate into ugliness that is worn on the surface - an air of cynicism, a hardness in the eyes, a seemingly permanent scowl. Or maybe the sadness never finds its way out; maybe the tears are cried in instead of cried out, and maybe that heart becomes also similar to my old "before" house - lovely and manicured on the outside, with its new architectural roof and its neatly painted shutters - and only upon opening the door can one see the sadness and ugliness that has been hidden within.

My house needed the touch and the investment of someone who would care for it and restore it and be willing to call it home. It needed someone who would see all that it could be, someone who would dare to enter into its tired, bedraggled, miry state and work patiently from the inside out, making the old new again, and the dirty clean once more. You might know where I'm headed with this analogy; our hearts are like my old house. A heart needs that same restorative touch of someone who cares enough to invest in it, to enter into its filth, to clean it up and love it and - you guessed it - to call it home.

I'm so glad God seems to think like a real estate investor. I'm so thankful that He sees my potential even when I am dirty and tired and ugly and wearing my years of mistreatment on my battle-scarred walls. I'm so glad that He runs His able hand along those walls and whispers His promises to me, just as I did to my old ugly house on that first day after I bought it. And it is worth noting that I didn't wait until the house was pretty before I bought it. I bought it when it was ugly. I bought it when it smelled liked feet.

A major difference between God and myself, though: I waited until my house was somewhat pretty before I chose to move in. God is far more tenacious as a restorer, moving right in in the midst of our filth and disarray. I'm so glad that God's love is the sort of "reckless, raging fury" that moves right in and makes itself at home, even before we are the least bit able to offer him hospitality - even when, like any nasty old building, we ought to be condemned. But He doesn't condemn us. He moves in. He calls our hearts Home. That amazes me.

My nasty old house is still old, but it isn't nasty anymore (most of the time!). It is obvious now that someone loves it and cares for it and keeps it clean (most of the time!) and smelling like vanilla instead of feet. It is useful to its owner now, serving me well, allowing me to offer hospitality to others when I play hostess for gatherings and groups. We ought to do the same with our hearts as we do with our homes - invite others in, and offer hospitality and warmth from within its walls.

One more thing about my house, though - it's not exactly finished yet, you see. I haven't yet replaced the old painted cabinets in the kitchen, and that thirty-year-old countertop is now screaming to be replaced as well (in fact, just this week, one of its laminate edges broke off completely, exposing some very old pressboard guts). My house is still a work in progress... yes, much like my heart (and yours). And even once I find the time and money to finish updating the kitchen, I will still be able to open my pantry and look at about four square feet of old country-blue heart-and-flower vinyl floor, should I need to be reminded that my house has a past.

But if you ask me, a house with a past is far more interesting than a brand-new house, anyway. A house with a past has stories to tell. If only its walls could talk... what would they say, I wonder? What would they have to share?

And that, of course, is how hearts are far more lovely than houses. Hearts can speak and share and tell stories about from whence they have come. They can tell others about the mighty restorative hand that made them new again. They can tell other dirty, bedraggled, tired hearts that there is hope, that there is a creative, visionary God with a love like a reckless raging fury who is eager and willing and able to pursue them, purchase them, inhabit them, restore them, and call them home.

End of an Era (Journal entry from BEFORE I turned old)

2009-06-05T22:39:00.000-07:00

Saturday, December 31, 2005

So, I just turned 29 and suddenly I find myself waxing somewhat philosophical. Someone once told me that our twenties are supposed to be about self-discovery, and so of course this is my last year in which to discover myself, or I suppose this will have been a waste of a decade. No pressure there.I don't know that I have discovered myself, as it were, but I have certainly learned much about this person I find staring me down in the mirror every day. And, short of discovering myself, at least now I like myself enough to be able to say that if I were not me, I would want to be my friend. Or, at least, I would want to buy Me a latte and get to know Me better.

So, who have I become over the past 29 years on this planet? I was born a sin-stained earthen vessel, flawed in my humanity, and try as I have to remedy that, I remain the same. I would surmise that part of "self-discovery" is the discovery that perfection is an unattainable goal, this side of Heaven. I am not who I wish I was, but I am someone I can live with (good thing). STILL...

I drive too fast. I drink too much Diet Coke, too much coffee (my "soft addictions", according to a very frank friend of mine). I am awful at most sports. When playing the piano, I have a "heavy" left hand - when drumming, I am "fill-happy." I am not as fearless as I would like to be. I care what people think, even though it is much cooler not to. In my faith walk, I tend to take one step forward and two steps back at times. I have a nasty little habit of inserting my foot into my mouth, and an even nastier habit of apologizing too much. I often try to cram 20 hours worth of productivity into a 24-hour day, which when I do the math, tells me that I don't afford myself much time for sleep. I have a hard time standing up for myself, a hard time admitting need, and a hard time forgiving myself. I tend to complicate things, tend to overthink and underpray. I have a peculiar tendency to self-destruct when under pressure. BUT...

I am a good (not perfect) mom. I am very nurturing. I give great back massages and foot rubs. I am a forgiving person. I am a good listener, an even better hugger. I am fun to hang out with, good at making people laugh. I can do uncanny impersonations. I am a decent writer. I have sadly accepted the fact that I will never be an alto, but I am a well-trained soprano nonetheless. I have relative perfect pitch, which comes in handy. I am good at Scrabble and Pictionary. I am a very smart shopper (never pay retail!). I am a faithful friend and an ethical employee. Little kids like me and teenagers think I'm cool (major boost to the ego right there). I can french braid my own hair. I see the glass as half-full most of the time.

Moreover, I may not be who I want to be, but I sure as heck am not who I used to be. I may not have yet arrived at wherever I am going, but at least I am not where I was. I am a work in progress. I am Not Finished Yet.

"Author Under Construction. Please check back regularly for updates."

The Ministry of Noticing

2009-06-05T22:34:00.000-07:00

Twice in the past month, I have had friends repent to me for misspelling my name. Ignore the fact that my parents chose to spell my name in a manner that, unbeknownst to them, is phonetically incorrect, and that "J-E-N-N-A" actually looks a lot better and makes a lot more sense than "J-E-N-A", which the rules of phonics dictate should be pronounced "Gina." Ignore both of these facts, because I digress... Already.

The point is, two of my friends -- one old, one new -- took a moment to notice something that some might think relatively insignificant, but that in fact is quite the opposite. A person's name is important. In Biblical times, parents put a great deal of consideration into chosing names for their heirs. Isaac received his name, meaning "he laughs", after Abraham laughed at the notion of Sarah's miraculous pregnancy. Samuel ("God has heard") was given his name after his mother, Hannah, prayed earnestly and fervently for a child, and was overjoyed that her request had been heard and granted. And, if you need further (extrabiblical) proof that names are significant to a person's identity, just ask Dances with Wolves and Stands with a Fist.

(A side note: my son Jaden's name is from the Hebrew, also meaning "God hears and knows." As for me, my parents initially chose to name me Kelly, like any good Irish baby, which would have given me the legacy of "bright-headed one." Instead, because the name had already been used in the family, I became Jena, "the small bird." So, I didn't have to live up to the expectation of being bright, after all.)

Anyway, the fact that my friends took note of the correct spelling of my name, and then set about being intentional to spell it differently in the future, said something to me. It said that I mattered, and it said that they noticed.

Can we get good and honest for a minute here? We all want to be noticed, to some extent. If it were not so, we wouldn't bother to change our profile pictures or update our statuses on Facebook, now would we? Would we bother at all if we thought no one would take note of it? According to my sister, who on principle very rarely updates her status, there is something inherently narcissistic about Facebook. I think that's stretching it a bit, but if you dial down the drama a few notches and delete the diagnostic code she has just labeled upon us all, I think I can smell what she's cookin'. We want someone to read our stuff, browse our profile, look at our photos. And I don't know about you, but I get a little giddy when one of you pops by my profile and writes on my wall, or sends me some Flair, or gives me a sticker. It means I crossed your mind. It means someone said, in essence, "Hey, I know you're there."

Back in the dark ages, like 2006 or so, some of us used to do crazy things like get in our cars and drive to Target and buy a Hallmark card and write in it - like, real writing, with a pen! Crazy! - and seal it and stamp it and... Phew. Well, I'm exhausted. Thank goodness we've evolved since then. Now with a little click of our mouse, we can let our friends know they crossed our minds. Pretty cool.

So here's my thesis: I believe, being the cock-eyed optimist that I am, that Facebook could start a revolution of "noticing" and acting on it, not only in the virtual world of cyberspace, but maybe even in this concrete jungle that we inhabit when we're not nose-to-screen. If we get used to making comments and writing notes and sending little virtual presents, maybe - just maybe - that senstivity will translate into the real world, where there are people all around us who are desperate to be noticed, desperate for our comments, desperate for confirmation that they matter. They might really need one of these: :) or one of these: <3 or one of these: (((hug))) but in the real world we'll have to use our faces and our arms instead of our keyboards, which will require a bit more effort, so start small if you must. You could always start by spelling their name correctly.

Topamax: A Cautionary Tale

2009-06-05T22:29:00.000-07:00

I just spoke with a friend of mine who, like me, has suffered over the years from debilitating migraines. She was excited because her neuro had just put her on a "new" drug, the miraculous pharmaceutical wonder, Topamax (which is not new at all, only newly prescribed for off-label use in treating migraines. Topamax is an anti-convulsant designed to treat epilepsy and sometimes prescribed as a mood stabilizer for bipolar disorder).

Anyway, she was optimistic that her lack of a headache for the past eight days would be indicative of the overall success she would have in relieving her symptoms, and as I assured her, this could very likely be true, as I did not have a single migraine attack during the many months that I was on the 'Max. HOWEVER...I also felt it was my place to give her a little more information -- more than that which is detailed in the legally-mandated pharmaceutical disclosure insert. For the sake of objectivity, I also encouraged her to do a little googling for herself and read other patients' experiences on the many, many online chatrooms devoted to this drug. To save you time, though, if you or someone you care about is considering taking this miracle drug, here is MY own experience, encapsulated (so to speak).

First thing I noticed was the bizarre tingling in my fingers and toes, and the burning sensation on the top of my head (a little freaky when you can FEEL a drug working in your brain). Also, my tongue would become numb and feel like it was filling my mouth. This would eventually make talking a challenge (and I rather like to talk). But, whatever. I figured I could deal, if it meant no more headaches. I could stick it out, if those were the only side effects. They weren't.

In a few weeks, I began to experience unbelievable vertigo. I would sit at my desk at work with the mouse in my hand, and it would feel as though it were swelling in my hand and I could barely hold onto it. Then my chair would begin to tilt forward until I felt like I would slide right off it and land under my desk on the floor.

And then the really fun stuff started: the "mild aphasia" that the inserts warned me about. Let me tell you, aphasia is no less incapacitating if we label it "mild." If you're unfamiliar with the term, aphasia is defined as "one in a group of speech disorders in which there is a defect or loss of the power of expression by speech, writing, or signs, or a defect or loss of the power of comprehension of spoken or written language." Does that sound "mild" to you? I was losing my ability to speak and to formulate sentences. One look at the blotter pages from my work calendar at that time will tell you how screwed up I was. I couldn't spell. Not even my own NAME (seriously). The word 'remember' was spelled, 'rerememember.' My handwriting changed, resembling that of an angry twelve-year-old boy (or perhaps a serial killer). Food tasted terrible. My Diet Coke no longer had fizz, and tasted a bit like chicken.

I am appalled to hear how often Topamax is now being prescribed for off-label use as a weight loss aid. Will it work? Very likely. Is it worth it? That's a personal decision. You'd have to ask all the skinny people who can't form sentences or write their names. But be patient as you wait for them to answer; they will probably stop mid-sentence and forget what the question was. And we're not done yet. There's more.

My short-term memory evaporated. I couldn't remember sequences of events or put them in order in my mind, and I had to write everything down - everything. On three separate occasions, I made deposits at the drive-through at my bank and drove off with their little tube thingy (Do you know how embarrassing it is to go into the bank with three tubes in your arms and confess that you've done that MORE than once??).

Two more... Hair loss. They don't tell you about this one, and it often doesn't happen until you've titrated up to some of the higher dosages, but it is really not that uncommon (again, google it - you won't find it on the offical Topamax website, that's for sure). Topamax drastically depletes the body of the B vitamin Biotin, which is essential to the health of hair and nails. I lost about a third of my hair (judging from the thickness of my ponytail). Are you scared yet? There's more.

Depression. Not just ho-hum, got-the-blahs despression, but big-time full-blown chemically-imbalanced clinical wanna-die depression. This was the one that finally made me come to my senses. I sat across from my mom one night at a table at Syl's, trying to enjoy an amazing meal (we were celebrating something... of course, I can't remember what because I was drugged) and I could not stop crying. Tears just kept falling into my double-baked potato with a salty sad splat. Nothing was wrong. I just wanted to die, that's all. For no identifiable reason.

This could have been where the story fades to black. But it isn't. At the admonition of friends and family, I chose to flush the blasted miracle drug down the toilet and go back to chomping Advil Migraine like pez. So, that's my story. It might not be yours, so take this or leave it; it's up to you. This is just the stuff I wish someone had told me before I nearly became a statistic.

He Said, She Said

2009-06-05T22:24:00.000-07:00

So I'm sitting in the office this morning, having a little chit-chat with my friend Bob about the differences between men and women. His theory is that a man's brain is full of “boxes” - a box for his buddies, a box for the car, a box for his job, a box for his wife or girlfriend, a box for the kids. He says the key is, these boxes must never be allowed to touch one another. Everything is compartmentalized. And, he tells me, they have one other box, a secret box that the women in their lives know not of. This box, he says, contains nothing. Nothing at all. Pure nothing. It's their favorite box, he says.

I told him my theory about men and women's brains. Sitting at the computer, I used my screen as a little visual aid (men do well with visuals, right?). “Look, Bob,” I said, “See my screen here? See how I have about eight different windows open at once? I am working on all of these things. One is my online bank account. One is an unfinished query letter to a literary agency. One is an email to a friend. One is a chapter to the book I am working on. One is a follow-up letter to all the people I had through my open house on Sunday. One is the Allstate website because I am looking up their phone number so I can bug them about my reimbursement check. One is the MLS database, because I'm searching for properties. And one is google, because I need to find the perfect chocolate dessert to make for some friends next weekend.”

Bob laughed. “You're doing all those things at once? What, do you have ADD or something?”

“Nope,” I said. “I'm just multitasking. It's what women do.”

“Don't you ever want to just think about nothing?” Bob asked, in awe.

“We can't,” I said, shaking my head. “It's not possible.”

“You know,” Bob said, “I read one time that they did a study at some research hospital somewhere to see if people really could think about nothing. Honest to Pete, they discovered that a man's brain is capable of showing such little activity that he would appear to be dead.”

“See what I mean?” I countered. “My brain will probably still show activity after I really am dead. I'll be thinking of all the things I meant to get done before I died!”

“Okay,” Bob said, clearly intrigued. “So if you say your brain is like that computer screen, with all those windows open at once, what's going on in my brain right now?”

I smiled. “Screen saver.”

Wishin' and Prayin'

2009-06-05T22:20:00.000-07:00

I'm not an especially assertive person. A few of you have sent me Facebook messages telling me that I seem so much bolder than you remember me in middle school, high school, college, prison, wherever we saw one another last. (Okay, not prison. Just making sure you pay attention.) I appreciate your messages, but as I read them they cause me to giggle through my coffee, because I'm only bold in my "virtual" world. My friend has a magnet on her fridge that says "I wish I were the person my dog thinks I am." I think I need one that says, "I wish I were the person my Facebook friends think I've become."

But wishing only gets us so far. I could wish for a lot of things. I used to make quite a habit of wishing. I wish I could go back in time. I wish I had finished school. I wish I had eyes like Bonnie's, hair like Kris' and a body like Ellen Pompeo's. I wish I were less neurotic, and didn't care so much about things that don't matter. I wish I could be a stay-at-home mom, I wish I could get a multi-book contract, I wish I were more proficient on piano. I wish, I wish, I wish. Wishing gets singularly dull after a while. I wish I could stop wishing.

Wish granted! I've decided to trade wishing for hoping. The key, of course, is to know the difference. You have to sort out the changeable from the unchangeable. Reciting the serenity prayer helps, if you can get through it without feeling like Stuart Smalley. If you can do that, then you might be able to eventually trade the hoping for praying and mingle the prayer with action.

My son Jaden's kindergarten teacher last year taught the kids an invaluable little mantra: "'Ya git whatcha git and you don't throw a fit." Maybe that's a magnet I need on my fridge. It's true, after all; we "git" what we "git." What we're responsible for is what we do with what we "git." And all the wishing in the world won't change that.

I think I'm starting to get it. It has taken 32 years, but I'm starting to understand. And who knows? If I continue to listen to the wisdom of kindergarten teachers, I may just become the person my Facebook friends think I am.

Depression: The New Black?

2009-06-05T15:00:00.000-07:00

So I'm standing in line at Starbucks this afternoon (thanks to all of you who have purchased gift cards to help fund my espresso addiction in this economically dry season), and I can't help but notice the emotional state of my barista, Kristy. Most baristas at Starbucks seem to have been trained to exude sunshine and rainbows with their glowing smiles and conversational ease. They're breezy, for the most part; they're takin' orders, makin' lattes, lovin' life. (They also have a pretty sweet job, earning full health insurance benefits for just 20 hours a week, while pushing one of America's last legal drugs). Kristy, though, seems to have missed a memo. She's not breezy. Her smile doesn't glow. In fact, she sort of looks like someone has just killed her puppy.

This doesn't sit well with me. I can't very well just take my double tall nonfat extra foam cappuccino and leave. I gotta know what's up. Something's not right. So, because somewhere deep inside me is a junior high school social worker who missed her calling, I dig a little.

"So, have you been here since like five in the morning?" It's a good ice breaker. Everyone knows those poor kids in the green aprons start work at the crack of dawn, and my guess is that doesn't go over well with a teenager.

"Pfft," Kristy replies. "Shyeah. Yesterday and today. I just wanna get out of here."

"I'll bet you do," I say. "It's pretty awesome weather out there for February. I hope you can get out there and enjoy it soon."

"Yeah," Kristy sighs. "I'll probably just go home and sleep anyway, so it doesn't really matter."

"Mmm. Probably didn't get much sleep if you had to make it here by five."

"Actually, I went to bed at like 7:30 last night," she says, sweeping her pink and black bangs across her forehead. "If you're asleep, you don't notice how badly your life sucks."

"This is true," I say, waiting for more.

She obliges. "I swear, all my friends and I are like that. It's like, why would we want to be awake, right? Like, why would anyone actually choose to be awake rather than sleeping? I mean, seriously." She hands my gift card back to me. I notice the tattoo on her left hand: TWLOHA.

"To Write Love on Her Arms, right?" I ask, gestering to her hand.

"Yeah," she says, smiling just enough for the pendant lights to create a glint on her braces. She looks surprised that someone like me (someone, you know, like, old) would be familiar with the acronym. "It's just, you know, a thing. It's just something I'm sort of into."

"You must really care about that cause," I say. "I mean, tattoos are permanent. Did your parents ask what it meant?"

"They didn't even notice the tattoo," she says, a disgusted look coming across her face like a shadow. "And I've had it for, like, two months."

I glance outside. I should go. My kid's gonna be home in fifteen minutes. But I can't. I take a slow sip of my coffee and proceed with caution. "Really," I say. "Two months and they never noticed?"

She shakes her head, razor-edged strands of hair swinging side to side. "So..." I say, running my finger over the top of my to-go cup, "If they ever happen to notice, what are you gonna tell them?"

"Huh," Kristy scoffs, picking at her cuticles. "Tell them I'm into cutting? As if."I nearly choke on my cappuccino. She has obviously missed the mission of To Write Love on Her Arms. I can't believe she is telling me this.

I thought about Kristy for the rest of the day. Not so much because she is an anomaly (she isn't), and not because I am particularly horrified by those who self-harm (I'm not). The thing that got to me, as I replayed the conversation throughout the day, is how casually she spoke of her self-injurious behavior, and about the collective state of depression of her circle of friends. And from where I sit, observing the world from a concerned layman's point of view, the problem is not only that teenage depression is an epidemic. The problem is that it is trendy.

One would have to be living under a rock to be unaware of the current "emo" culture. Movies like "Prozac Nation" and "Numb" and "Girl Interrupted" have gathered a cult-like following (and I have to admit that I own the latter). Rhianna's hit "Disturbia" was nominated for a Grammy tonight for best dance recording. We dance to lyrics like these:

It's a thief in the night / To come and grab you / It can creep up inside you / And consume you / A disease of the mind / It can control you / It's too close for comfort

The good news is, there doesn't seem to be much stigma in being clinically depressed anymore. This, as I see it, is progress. But progress can progress too far, can't it? Marya Hornbacher, in her memoir "Wasted," says it this way: "People who’ve Been to Hell and Back develop a certain sort of self-righteousness. There is a tendency to say: I have an addictive personality, I am terribly sensitive, I’m touched with fire, I have Scars. There is a self-perpetuating belief that one simply cannot help it, and this is very dangerous. It becomes an identity in and of itself. It becomes its own religion, and you wait for salvation, and you wait, and wait, and wait, and do not save yourself."

And that, I think, is why Kristy was on my mind all day, and why now, at one o'clock in the morning, I find myself troubled not only for her, but for her entire generation, which happens to include a lot of kids that I love to death. Once depression becomes identity, what motivation is there to seek out help and receive healing? I gave Kristy a telephone number to someone I thought she might find helpful. I told her I would see her again (and now I have an excuse to return to Starbucks, which is always convenient).

And now, at 1:00 am, I am going to leave her, and the rest of generation black, in the hands of God. Otherwise, quite frankly, I'll end up depressed. I'm just sayin'.

To My Beautiful Girlfriends (Read: ALL of you!) -- posted on Facebook in 02/09

2009-06-05T14:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday marked a little milestone in my short little life. In support of a great lady out in Tennessee who is making a difference in the war against twisted cultural ideals of beauty and self-image, I posted a picture of a nude-faced Jena. The woman, Constance, has challenged herself to go sans makeup for one month (and yes, she picked the shortest month of the year, but it's also eating disorder awareness month, so we won't hold that against her, will we?). Well, a few days ago, Constance was getting a little tired of posting "scary pictures" of herself on Facebook, so I offered to do the same, as a gesture of support and encouragement. She said she would appreciate that, so I uploaded the nude-faced pic and tagged her in it as proof of my (notably admirable) loyalty. But she took it a step further and challenged me to make the pic my PROFILE pic for a day. Now THAT, I gotta say, I wasn't so enthusiastic about. Of course, all anyone has to do is challenge me or dare me, and I'm stirred. Hence the "naked" profile pic of Jena.

I wasn't prepared for the response I got from so many of you. My inbox was full throughout the day. Some of you shared things with me that I would never have expected, and I want you to know how much I appreciate your honesty. It made me feel pretty warm to realize that you felt comfortable enough (or, at least, compelled) to respond as you did. But it also made me realize just how far-reaching the damage of our western beauty myths has extended. I was shocked to learn how many of my (beautiful!) friends are at war with their own reflections. (Please note: I have tagged many more people here than just those who sent me messages, so don't try to figure out who responded. You'll never know, and that's how it should be!)

Last night around midnight, figuring I had fulfilled my duty, I changed my profile picture. I was all too happy to do so. Then I woke up this morning to more messages from you, and I felt convicted to put the naked-faced shot back up for another day. I had NO IDEA such a teeny little act of "protest" would spur such a reaction. Things are all a-buzz in my little corner of the Facebook world. I never thought disturbing the peace would be so fulfilling.

Enjoy your day, my pretties. You are God's masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10)...Jena

Love Lessons

2009-06-05T14:52:00.000-07:00

Will Rogers was full of baloney. He is known to have said, "I never met a man I didn't like." Call me cynical, but I find that hard to believe. What about the guy who cut him off in traffic? What about the guy who stole his girl? What about the guy who spread nasty rumors about him on the internet, stole his identity, and sent him harrassing text messages? Okay, maybe those things never happened to Will Rogers. The point is, not everyone is likeable, and if we're good and honest (and we're not), we simply do not like everybody.

Well, that's not very Christlike, you might say, and I would disagree. (And, in keeping with the theme, my disagreeing with you might cause you not to like me. But I disgress.) Did Jesus really like everybody? We know that He was sinless. We know that He showed love to all people (impossible for Him not to show love, since God is love). But did He like all the people He loved? And do we have to?Let's bring this down to an elementary level for just a minute, and consult the ol' Webster's dictionary. Webster defines the words 'like' in this way: 'to be suitable or agreeable to; to feel attraction toward or take pleasure in.' We already know Jesus wasn't in agreement with everybody; that one is simple enough. Did he have an attraction toward all people? Perhaps to some more than to others. This is purely speculation on my part, and if I am way off, God Himself will take it up with me some day when I ask Him about this (and I plan to).

Moving on.The Great Webster defines 'love' simply as: to have affection for. Not a very comprehensive definition, but we know Jesus certainly had an affection for all people (affection meaning 'fond attachment and devotion'). I can think of no more profound demonstration of devotion than to lay down one's life for others. Still, Webster's definition of love leaves me unsatisfied, so let's see what God Himself has to say on the subject.'Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things; believes all things; hopes all things; endures all things.' (I Corinthians 13:4-8). Okay, now that sounds like Jesus to me. It also sounds much harder to do than to simply have affection for people. Affection comes easily to me; patience, not so much. I very often want to insist on my own way. I can be irritable, I'm sure (ask my son). I don't necessarily rejoice in what is wrong, but I certainly don't always rejoice in what is right. And can my love really be expected to endure all things? All things means ALL things. That's a lot of things to endure. Do I really have to?

In a word, yes. Whatever love is, I am called to personify it in the world. Whatever love looks like, it is to be made visible in my life. Loving people is not optional, not up for debate, not an elective course in the school of life. Liking people, though, is a grayer area, and I am pretty grateful for that, because it means I can have opinions. I don't have to become a pleasant but mindless clone. I can be honest with God and with myself and say, 'you know, this person or that person just really hacks me off. They get on my last nerve. If I never see them again, it will be too soon.' But, most likely, God will ensure that I see them again. Being the perfect father that He is, He seems to place those people - those "prickly people" whom I do not like - in my path as many times as it takes for me to learn to love them.

From where I sit, I see a common misconception about love. We tend to think that love is something that we feel. And it certainly can be. Showing love when we feel love for a person comes naturally to many (though not all) of us. But what about when we don't feel it? Love is still possible and, in fact, mandated. No, love is not something you feel; love is something you do, and something you do intentionally. It must be chosen and acted upon. Christ's death upon the cross was a profound act of love. My guess is, He didn't "feel like" giving His life that day, and certainly not in that way. He asked His Father if He would let the cup pass from Him - in other words, "Father, is there any other way?" - and yet the act of love was when He followed that prayer with a famous, world-changing sentiment: Nevertheless. "Nevertheless," Jesus prayed, "Not my will but Yours be done." That, as I see it, is love in action. That is love as choice, rather than love as feeling. And I'm pretty sure it's not the choice I would have made (which is one of many reasons it's good that I am not God).

So, what have we learned here in our little love lesson? We do not have to like people in order to love them. We do not have to feel love in order to demonstrate it. And knowing these things will not make it any easier. Class dismissed. Go in love.

Pimples and Wrinkles

2009-06-05T12:57:00.000-07:00

It's an ordinary tuesday, like any other day. I climb out of bed, put on my robe and slippers, and pad into the bathroom. I turn the faucet all the way to hot, hold a washcloth under the stream of warming water, and meet my own gaze in the mirror. There she is. Same ol' mug as yesterday, and the day before. Except... what the... Oh, no. You've got to be kidding me, I think. Seriously? Seriously??

It's a pimple. Right there, on the forehead, little left of center. Come ON, I think. I'm too old for this. I am thirty-two years old. In fact, I am not only too old for pimples, I am old enough for wrinkles. I lean in closer, straining to see myself clearly with my aging myopic eyes. Yep, there they are. Tiny, fine lines, right there beside the eyes, and a stubborn vertical crease between the brows, a result of years of habitual squinting. I stand tall, pulling away from the mirror. I sigh. Pimples and wrinkles, at the same time... doesn't seem right. That just seems like too much ugly on one face.

I ponder on this injustice as I brush my teeth (the teeth, thank the Lord, are still good). Suddenly, through a mouthful of toothpaste, I laugh. And I laugh. And I laugh some more. How odd... I seem to have the worst of both worlds, stuck between adolescent awkwardness and middle-aged malaise! Pimply adolescents, as I perceive them, still have most of their lives ahead of them. They have a lot to learn. They're usually not quite sure who they are, and they stumble through life with precious few tools, breaking things as they go, learning lessons and making messes. And those who have soldiered through and arrived in middle-age or beyond, as I perceive them, have established some things for themselves. They are no longer preoccupied with pleasing all people at all times (they have, no doubt, learned that such a goal is a waste of invaluable energy). They not only know who they are, they no longer wish to be anyone else. They boast the beauty of a mosaic - a masterpiece of broken pieces, arranged and rearranged into something lovely, though the brokenness remains.

Pimples and wrinkles. Awkwardness and assurance. As I rinse my mouth and blot my face dry, it all makes sense. Of course I should have both... This is me. Learned and learning. Established and evolving. Grown and still growing.

Too much ugly on one face? Maybe. But at least it's an honest image. I'm just sayin'.

If They Only Knew (Song for Polly)

2009-06-05T12:52:00.000-07:00

IF THEY ONLY KNEW (Song for Polly)

Walks past the storefront window
Sees her reflection in the glass
She doesn’t really know that girl
Might have met her in the past

Seems to have it all together
Must just sail right through life
Probably someone’s mother
Someone’s lover, someone’s wife

(chorus)But oh, if they only knew
The confusion and the lies
If they could see the struggle
That she snuggles with at night
If they could see behind the smile
To where the worries lie
They’d nevermore believe her
When she says “I’m doing fine”

Goes to church on Sunday
They’d notice if she didn’t show
She’s a familiar face
A name that everybody knows

She teaches little children
How to love and serve their Lord
And all that know her love her
But there’s a shadow they ignore

(chorus)Because oh, if they only knew
How she cries herself to sleep
If they could see her weariness
And the secrets that she keeps
If they could look beyond her mask
To the tenderness inside
They’d dig a little deeper
When she says “I’m doing fine”

(bridge)And when the sun sets in the evening
And when her telephone stops ringing
She’s needing something to believe in
And wishing somebody would call
Oh, anyone at all

And oh, if they only knew
All the questions in her heart
If they could know the emptiness
Of how they echo in the dark
If they could see her hidden tears
And hear her silent, stifled cry
They’d never let her get away
She’d never go another day
They simply wouldn’t let her say
“I’m doing fine”

Polly Williams (1974-2008)

Eavesdropping in Starbucks

2009-06-05T12:49:00.000-07:00

So, I'm sitting in Starbucks right now, in my usual corner that always seems to have been left vacant because it was waiting just for me. I have my laptop in front of me, and I have vowed to myself to avoid the internet today, in the interest of getting some real writing accomplished. But, just for a moment, I have to break my vow, because I have to share this. Or, at least, I have to take a minute to write it, since that seems to be my chosen means of processing life.

This tender, quiet man is sitting at the table behind me, talking to a very loud and outspoken woman. The man is older, maybe in his mid-seventies, and he is telling this woman how badly he misses his wife, and how he believes that his newly diagnosed cancer is his gift from God, so that he can go home to Heaven to be with her. The woman is telling him that he mustn't think that way, or he will have no chance of beating the cancer. For the past 45 minutes, she has been doing most of the talking, while I try not to eavesdrop (clearly, I'm not putting forth much of an effort). She is very eloquent and articulate. She has either practiced this speech in front of the mirror or she talks for a living. I've decided that she would make a decent motivational speaker, but a crappy therapist, because she hasn't listened to a single word the man has said.

The guy misses his wife. He is beside himself. She's been gone six months, and he hasn't slept in their bedroom yet because he can't bear the thought of inhabiting it without her, so he's been sleeping on the couch. He doesn't know what to do with himself, because he has never had to be with himself unless she was there to tell him who he was. He was always "Ellen's Jim"... and now he doesn't know how to just be "Jim." They never had children, and now, as an old man, he regrets this.

I haven't turned around to look at the guy, but in my mind he is incredibly lovable and cute, in that sweet, musty-smelling old man way. And I gotta say, this woman is getting on my last nerve. I want to spin around in my chair, shove her scone in her mouth, and take the cute old man home with me. I want to take him to the park and to the mall and bowling and golfing and teach him to play the drums and draw. I want to help him figure out who Jim is without Ellen. But, first, I'd better get a little more writing done.

Anyway... if you think of it, pray for my sweet friend Jim here, who doesn't want to live without Ellen, and pray for his annoying know-it-all friend. And then pray that I can stop eavesdropping long enough to edit a chapter or two.

On Becoming Cool

2009-06-05T12:46:00.000-07:00

There are those qualities that define a person - gentleness, sweetness, an over-the-top talent or sense of humor - qualities that become synonymous with a person's name, or that we equate with the person whenever they cross our mind. I'm not sure what my own defining qualities are, and I think I kind of prefer that sort of ignorance and lack of self-awareness. It would be just like me to dislike the list and covet the defining qualities of my friends. Coolness is one of those qualities that you either have or you don't have. From where I sit, coolness isn't learned; it's innate.

I'll admit it: I wish I were cool. I don't think I am. And the very fact that I wish I were cool proves this to me. Cool people don't think about being cool. Cool people don't think about what people are thinking about them. Because really, there is nothing quite as uncool as self-consciousness. I struggle a little with self-consciousness. A less charitable observer may say that I am a neurotic mess. I tend to think it must be so liberating to live on the other side of the fence - to be one of the few truly cool people in the world who are untethered to their need to please others, to be accepted and well-liked and agreed with. These are the rebels of society - the men who dare not to stifle their tears in the interest of virility, the women who dare to lounge on the beach in confidence, regardless of the size of their buttprint in the sand. These are the few who live above the threshold of coolness. It seems almost tragic that they don't know it, and wouldn't care even if they did.

An old classmate of mine from high school told me last week that, although we had only known one other casually from performing in a play together, she could remember wishing at the time that she were cool like me. I blushed a little when I read that (and blushing, by the way, has never been cool), and I told her that I never had any idea that I was cool. The fact is, she had me all wrong. I'd fooled her. Which means that, while coolness can not be learned, it can be faked. And faking coolness, I suspect, is what most of us do on a daily basis. We just don't admit it, because that kind of honesty would make us feel as uncool as we secretly know that we are.Think about it. You're walking down the sidewalk, shopping bags in hand, and you trip over an uneven patch of concrete. So what do you do? You break into a little jog, pretending that you meant to do that. The trip was merely your launch. Or how about when you're sitting at a stoplight, and you reach up to scratch your nose (for the sake of maintaining our collective fantasy of coolness, we won't deal here with words like 'pick'), and you turn to the side and see that you had an audience in the car next to you? Oops. Busted.

The people-pleasing thing keeps coming up for me. It's obviously a tether that God wants to bust me out of. And I suspect that if or when my memoir makes it to publication, the poop (can't say that other word, or my more conservative Christian friends will really think I'm uncool) is gonna hit the fan when it comes to keeping everyone pleased with me. I'm a tad more liberal than about half of my evangelical friends, and just a hair more conservative than the other half. Which, I guess, means that not all of them can think I'm cool at once. Can't please all the people all the time; might as well quit trying. Might as well put my feet up and relax a minute.

No, I'm not cool. Not the organic, innate type of cool, anyway. My friend Heather has a teeny little nose ring, and wears it as though she were born with it. If I pierced my nose, I would look like I'd had a freakish accident which left shrapnil behind. I can't learn to be cool any more than I can learn to be black or learn to have a different blood type. I can only be me, and embrace the fact that I trip over cracks in the sidewalk and pick (there, I said it) my nose in the car and tend to obsess over the width of my buttprint in the sand. And then, to make matters worse, I write about these things, which one could argue, makes me a peddler of TMI.

But exhibitionism sounds kind of cool, really.

Busted! (Or, to use a churchy term, convicted!)

2009-06-05T12:43:00.000-07:00

Have you ever sensed God speaking to you in such a way that you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was His voice? More specifically, have you ever sensed the conviction of His spirit so profoundly - and so precisely - that you felt compelled to fall to your knees, right where you stood? Yeah, me too. This morning, in fact.

So I'm in church early this morning for sound check and practice, and I'm hearing my own voice in my monitor, singing words like "Take my heart and form it / Take my mind, transform it" and suddenly a mental image flashes into my brain: my prom picture. How spiritual, right? Chris had posted it on his profile yesterday, and we laughed and reminisced about it, and then I added it to my own photos, along with some disparaging comments about my pasty skin and fat face. I didn't think about, you understand. I just did it. It was an automatic, almost unconscious, response. Luke 6:45 tells us that "out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks" (or the fingers type, as it were). I guess I might have a little darkness in my heart, to put it mildly.

As I often like to do with conviction, I shook it off and re-focused myself on the music. During the second service, I heard my voice in the monitor again, singing back to me, "I'm captured by Your holy calling / Set me apart / I know You're drawing me to Yourself / Lead me, Lord, I pray." Such a beautiful song. I've sung it more times in my Christian life than I can count, and yet each time it means something different to me. And this morning, try as I did to shake off that nagging sense of conviction, I felt that God was reminding me that if I am to be truly "set apart" for Him, and if I really want Him to "lead me, Lord, I pray", I must make some changes, both in my heart and between my ears. No more dissing myself in photos, or in storefront windows, or in the mirror. It's JUST not cool with Him. Whether it bothers me or not, HE doesn't like it one bit. Ouch.

And I still wasn't off the hook. I looked out at all those beautiful teenagers in the first three rows, just fifteen feet in front of me, and watched them as Eric sang, "Who are the treasured and the prized / Who is the apple of God's eye / Who is" and then they sang along with me, "We are, we are, we are!" Their sweet little faces made me cry. These are kids I love very much. These are girls I want to teach to love themselves and respect themselves and see themselves as God sees them. In fact, should I ever go back to school, it would be with the goal and the hope of equipping myself to work in such a capacity. But it looks like I may have far more work to do than can be done in the classroom. Heart work. Work that no one else can do for me. Work that hurts, like re-setting a bone that's been broken for thirty years. Am I up for it?I don't know, honestly. But if I want to help other women to build healthy self images, I had better be. Otherwise, I might as well stand before them and say, "Hi there, Pot. It's me kettle. Yeah, you're black."

So, what to do? Well, for starters, I plan to sit on my hands if I have to each time someone posts a photo of me that I don't like, to keep myself from typing out of the overflow of my goopy, sludgy heart. You can call me out on that if I screw up. And, I'll continue to sing my songs of praise to the One who is far more forgiving toward me than I ever have been. I should try being a bit more like Him.