It's Not About Me

My nineteen-year-old daughter, Kelsey made me cry the other day.

It wasn't out of frustration or anger (though that's happened a couple of times), it wasn't over some sad story she'd come across, or empathetic tears brought on by some major life issue she was dealing with. These were surprise tears, and she was crying, too.

Kelsey and I don't tend to be big criers. Tears are usually a last result, and often the by-product of someone else's pain (Kameron comes immediately to mind), or frustration (you know, how you get so darned p.o.'d that you start to cry?). I do cry more at movies, although she can't claim that she doesn't do that anymore, because now she does from time-to-time.

Since she started going to Northwest University last year she's been crying a lot more. They have all those God things going on all the time like Chapel services and stuff. The Chapel services often have guest speakers. Local pastors like Mark Driscoll and Judah Smith come, former NU students like Natalie Grant (singer), and people who've traveled the world doing mission-type things (getting their hands "dirty" all the way up to their hearts for Christ's sake), as well as current students from time to time.

These services touch her deeply. Beneath her witty, tough-girl exterior beats the heart of a servant. Kelsey's always loved our "special" kids. In fact, she's told me for years that she wants to adopt a Down's Syndrome baby. Future husband, beware.

So, back to how she made me cry.

Apparently they had a guy speak at Chapel on loving others, Jesus-style. You know, in a First Corinthians Thirteen unconditional love everyone truly and from your heart kind of way.

He talked about how easy it is to love those that love us: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven . . . For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? " (Matthew 5: 43-47) and about how the Christian Church has the unfortunate reputation of picking and choosing who to love, like His Church is some sort of private club.

But Jesus was all about finding the people who had no future - "the things that are not" - the prostitutes, the lepers, the ugly folk and the despised. Those are the ones He loved specially. He came to seek and save the lost, not those who think they're found. The Chapel Speaker Guy said it was about loving "all in" because that's the way Jesus is.

This is the place where, in the front seat of our car at Burgermaster, telling me this story over the sound of arguing kids in the back, Kelsey started to lose it, which of course, made me start to lose it. She said, "And I thought, 'That's my mom. That's what so special about her. That's how she loves the kids, that's why my friends and Kris's friends all love her. Because she loves everybody that way'".

You know, that was so not where I thought she was going with that story.

There was more to the conversation, of course. I know I don't love everyone the way Jesus does, and I told her that. It hurts me that I can't be pure love, that I let all kinds of stuff interfere. I'm not the friend I want to be. I'm not the daughter I want to be. I'm not the responsible adult I want to be. I can make lists of all the things I'm not.

But you know, I think that's why God loves me. That's why He loves you. All those broken, imperfect places we have are what He wants us to give to Him. He doesn't want us to try to get all cleaned up before we approach Him:

While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"

On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. . . for I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
Matthew 9: 10 - 13

It's not about being fit for the "Club". It's about knowing how messed up we are and needing Him to take our torn up, bloody, world-weary hearts and gently hold them in His immensely capable hands, forgiving our mistakes and helping us let go of all the hurt we've received.

Maybe that's what Kelsey sees in me. Not super-mom or super-Christian (definitely not), but super-sinner saved by great grace. Luke 7:47 says that one who has been forgiven much loves much (my loose translation). And I have been forgiven much.

He really is the answer. Him, not Christians. Him, not the Church. Him, not even me.

I love you guys - thanks for reading.

The Grand Canyon

I have to say, this has been one of the toughest years of my life. It's not just The Depression (mine, not the country's); or the general upheaval in my life - too convoluted to go into here - but on top of the typical stuff, I have Empty Nest junk, times three.
My older son, Kris, has been working his way out on his own since he graduated high school in 2005, so I'm kind of adjusted to that. But, he did move back home two years ago, leaving Colorado and coming out to Seattle to help keep the family together when Kameron relapsed and was back in the hospital another dozen or so times. Again, that's a long story, and a very sweet one, but essentially, Kris left his close ties to Colorado and a bunch of great friends to come out to Seattle and try to continue his college experience. This selflessness just blows me away.

This year, he moved down to Oregon to finish his degree at Linfield College, and he proposed to his really awesome girlfriend, Kami. I am incredibly happy for them both...but, I have to tell you guys that it's been a very hard adjustment, and I know I'm not quite there yet. It's that whole "leaving" part of "leaving and cleaving". I'm pretty sure it will be much easier for him than me!
Again, I am seriously happy for them both. This is purely my issue here.

Then we have Kelsey, my nineteen year old. She's also insanely sweet and kind of my right hand. Maybe the left one, too. Not only does she help in many and amazing ways, she, like Kris, helps keep my focused and helps me remember to have fun. She started college last Fall. Now, granted the college is like thirty minutes away, and she comes home a lot, but she's really getting her feet under her and starting her life. She has plans. Like going with her dorm friends to Disneyland for a week or something this summer. Like going on a mission trip to Scotland - this June. Like growing up.

And then we have Elesha. Now, I've only had Elesha the last eight years or so, but she grows on you. She and I have been through a lot together, and this year she also moved out into her own place and is taking classes at a local community college...she visits a bunch too, but...none of it's the same, people.So if you look at it clinically, I guess I have reason to be unsettled. These are major changes here, and all of them combined with all kinds of other stuff I've been stuffing for decades helped me into this little valley I find myself in. Actually, it's a pretty deep and long valley. Think Grand Canyon.

I argue with myself that, "Hey, look how proud you should be. Three young adults doing good young adultish stuff". They are on solid ground and I think they all have good heads on their shoulders. I don't mean that they will all be rich and whatever, I'm talking about their character. They have beautiful souls, all three of them. I can not begin to express how very very proud of them I am. They are certainly in better shape then I was at their age.

This parenthood gig stinks. And I have to go through this how many more times?

My Mom Logic

I've been a mom for twenty-two years. Crazy. In that time, I've raised, helped raise, and am still raising a bunch of kids.

You would think I'd have tons to say about Mom Logic, but I really don't. I don't find anything logical in being a mom. Let me explain.

Back many moons ago, when my two original children were very young - Kris was maybe three and Kelsey was around six months old - things were really rough. The Divorce was in the works, and my ex-husband had fled Seattle for Louisiana. We were living with my mom, which had its ups and downs, because mom and I have history, and she was pleased about The Divorce. I wasn't.

I had a full time job downtown in a stock brokerage - which required a lot of dressing up and looking nice - was dragging both kids to and from daycare (on the bus), and doing all the other basic mommy stuff like shopping, cooking, laundry, doctor appointments, diaper junk, baths, teaching my son, Kris how to ride a bike...you get the point.

So, most of the time, I was exhausted.

The only thing that kept me going was my new faith. I was a baby Christian. This belief came at me from out of the blue. The last thing I'd planned on was "finding Jesus". After all, I was an enlightened Seattleite. We don't do Christianity. That's something for primitives (to paraphrase Deepak Chopra).

In fact, I was horrified when I took this step of faith. Terrified of what people would say. Not sure what that was about, I didn't have too many "people".

But I digress. So, here I am, an almost complete wreck, parenting two beautiful kids by myself and feeling the walls closing in. I remember sitting at the kitchen table after a long day of work and mommying. Kris was probably outside, my mom wasn't home yet, and Kelsey was sitting on the kitchen floor wrapped up in some toy. She was a fat little baby, pudgy little cheeks, pouty little lips, and a round little head with hardly any hair. You know, the kind you strain at getting one of those Velcro bows on so people will know she's a girl? Like the pink clothes don't say enough?

I remember sitting there with my head propped up on my hand watching her play. She had her back to me, and all I could see was her little round self hunched over whatever it was she had. The place where her head and her upper back met looked like they were stuck together - like she had no neck, kind of like a little snowman baby or something. Only with arms and legs. And not so pale.

As I watched her, exhausted from the day, and anticipating years more of this, a massive rush of love completely overwhelmed me. It almost made me cry.

This perplexed me. I asked myself: how can I love her so much? I mean, what the heck? She was a pooping, crying, hungry, drooling, demanding blob of personhood, requiring constant supervision and gobs of money. I had given up my rights to my own life for this insistent, ungrateful little thing...what was up with this crazy wave of emotion?

And I swear, I heard God say to me, deep in my heart, "That's how I love you. You offer Me nothing at all, you deny Me, you break all My rules, you take and take, and rarely say thanks. But, I would die for you, Kathy".

And I got it. There is no logic to it. Love is totally illogical (nod to Mr. Spock). But it's written deep in our hearts. We long for it. We die without it. Good mommies pour it out constantly, daily, for years and years. And frequently, we don't get thanks. We don't get fame. We don't get fortune. We get sleepless nights, ER visits, late night phone calls, wet shoulders from crying babies, crying toddlers, crying teenagers, and crying young adults. We get barf, coffee, ketchup and other junk on our white shirts. Sometimes, we get our hearts broken.

And we love them. We love our babies.

I'm sorry, I can't find any logic in that. And I'm completely fine with it.


This post is my entry for the Mother of All Bloggers contest. If it is chosen, I will be begging for your votes. Just a heads up! Thanks, everyone.

Reality Bites

Back in the mid-'90s there was a movie called Reality Bites. I haven't actually seen it, but the title's always intrigued me. It's one of those little snippets that move through my mind like those little floaty things you see in your field of vision...you guys do know what I'm talking about, right? You know, they look like junk you'd find under a microscope...?

Sometimes the strangest stuff will pop into my head. Like almost every time I participate in a group prayer - especially if we're standing up and holding hands - I inevitably want to say, "Keep coming back, it will work if you work it!" While swinging our hands back and forth. That's from my brief stint in Al-Anon. Also from Al-Anon, "Don't be in the middle arranging all the outcomes" (like that's possible), from SmokeEnders, "You're a puff away from a pack a day". Pitiful, I know. Such is the flotsam and jetsam in my head. No wonder I'm in therapy.

Anyway, lately I've been thinking a lot about the Skin Horse. That wise old toy from the Velveteen Rabbit. I say wise, because I can't remember how many pastors I've heard quote him, so he must be pretty darned wise - right?

This is another thing I've never actually read front to back. But I like the premise. The actual full title is: The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real and it was written by Margery Williams back in 1922. Rabbit was a Christmas gift to a boy. The Boy loved him at first, for about two hours, and then Rabbit was quickly forgotten in the bedroom. I love how the author describes him as "shy" by nature, and says that most of the other toys put on airs and snubbed him - basically, this stuffed bunny had really low self-esteem. Only the Skin Horse would talk to him.

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

The Skin Horse Tells His Story

"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."

The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.

You can probably see why pastors like to quote this passage. I think we tend to want to listen to all the prosperity crap some preachers put out or the bad theology we make up ourselves; that we blame God for the mess in the world and in our lives (even the stuff we cause ourselves). In reality, Jesus spoke numerous times about having trouble in this world - He certainly did.

There's another scripture in the Old Testament that says that God has placed eternity in the hearts of men...maybe because that's in there (that longing for eternity), our hearts hurt over all the crap around us and in us. We know in our heart of hearts that it isn't supposed to be like this.

In the meantime, I guess the key is for us to remember that we are becoming Real. And, if we are honest with ourselves, the Realest people we know are the ones who've been through the most stuff and accepted it rather than blame, deny, and avoid it.

But, we all wish we could become it without these uncomfortable things happening.

I love you guys - thanks for listening.

Putting on My Oxygen Mask First

Have you heard that illustration that professionals use to encourage self-care? They say that ensuring time for yourself is like what they tell you on a plane: put your oxygen mask on first, then help those around you.

In theory, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, if you are choking and gasping and about to pass out, it's probably going to be difficult to take care of anyone else effectively - or at all.

But in practice...

I've been seeing this awesome counselor. Now, for years and years I've been one of those "Oh, you're seeing a Therapist?" kind of girls. Like wow, good for you (I'm perfectly fine, but hey, great, happy for you). Seriously. Kind of annoyingly "strong" but honestly understanding how other people could need therapy. I mean, it's a really nasty world out there. Even as a Christian, those slings and arrows can just wear you down. But every now and then, the inner pain and damage I have walled away in my deepest heart starts to seep through the cracks, and the fear of facing it in order to maybe, just maybe get it fixed has had me running for the hills (or a few glasses of wine!).

Lisa says this is dis-integration. An apt word, really. You have these dis-integrated, segregated chunks of your personality that are so wounded you try to keep them hidden and "safe" because it feels like if you allow anyone access to them you will, quite literally, die.

Thankfully, God brought Lisa into my life at this time, because I honestly can't shove the pain back any longer. Whatever is lurking behind that crumbly wall around my heart is winning. I can't keep running around it trying to hold it together any more.

For the sake of my children, and maybe for myself, it's finally time to look at these fears and feelings and hope that, by God's grace, mercy, and love, I won't be consumed by them. No clue what it all involves. Not especially thrilled by the prospect - in fact it scares the hell out of me - but, hopefully I'm finally convinced that it is not only necessary, but essential to the survival of myself and those around me.

The masks have dropped, and I'm reaching for mine. I'll try to keep everyone posted on what comes next.