To the Little Rebel Who Cries Out, "I Don't Want To!!!"

One warm spring day in the first grade I remember having a smidgen of a headache. I was sitting at my little table in Miss Pam’s room with my little knobby knees underneath my cubbyhole.  Angela sat across from me, and two of our friends sat beside us.  That fat, orange-covered handwriting book lay open in front of me.  (Yes, I still remember the color of that loathsome book.)  The longer I stared at it, the more that little rebel inside of me didn’t want to do it.  Left-handed people should not be subjected to such nonsense nor their creativity confined to fitting letters between those straight blue lines.  That headache just got worse.

I went to Miss Pam who allowed me to go to the office.  I called and convinced my mother that I now had the worst headache of my seven-year-old life, and shortly thereafter I was happily lying on the couch underneath my favorite afghan (the one that’s on my couch now) listening to the loud hum of that old air conditioner at the home of two of the most unsympathetic grandparents you’ve ever seen.  (Of course, they were two of the kindest people, but sharp as tacks I couldn’t get much past them.  This is the same grandmother who when on her deathbed told my husband the story of the time that she spanked me for getting into the pecans she had been shelling.  When he said, “I know that broke your heart to spank her,” Beth’s warm eighty-nine-year-old smile spread across her face, her blue eyes lit up, and in her shaking, Southern gentlewoman drawl she replied, “No . . . I ratha’ enjoyed it.”)

I escaped handwriting that day, but as the saying goes, “I may have won the battle, but I would surely lose the war.”  (Thank heaven!)

It’s funny how I have found myself in that rebellious little place thousands of times since then—the bottom line is this . . . (imagine my whispering voice here – yes, I can whisper – maybe the loud church pew whisper of a blue-haired lady; nevertheless, I am capable of a whisper) . . .  I don’t like grunt work.  (Dear friend, before you roll your eyes, tell the truth!  You’ve complained once or twice about it too.)  Now, don’t get me wrong, I like a little manual labor here and there if it involves a beautiful finished product (or even just an organized closet), but if the ultimate goal isn’t something beautiful or if it’s not fun or interesting or maybe even hard and intellectually stimulating, then there’s a little rebel in me who still cries out, “RUN – make like the wind!  You don’t have to do this!!!”  I know, I know – I’m blessed beyond measure.  I would gladly do grunt work all day every day in this amazing free country that I don’t deserve.  I also know this attitude shows arrogance, pride, lack of humility, immaturity, and selfishness, all rolled up into one feisty redhead.

But EVERYTHING to which the Lord calls me (and I believe calls all of us) involves “grunt work.”  He uses that necessary work to humble us and to refine us.  On the contrary, the enemy of our souls tempts us to be discontent with the “grunt work.”  If he can breed discontent (“I don’t like this work”), then he can breed in us a lack of faith that God is good and ultimately lack of faith in Him at all.  If he can breed arrogance and pride (“I’m too good/too smart/too old  for this work”), then he can breed idolatry (“I’m my own God; thus, I don’t need God.”).

When faced with grunt work this week, remember that God uses grunt work for our good.  Remember to silence the enemy who breeds discontent and instead listen to the One who is trustworthy and always good.  He is passionate that the spirit He has placed within you should be faithful to Him . . .

 “Do you think the Scriptures have no meaning?  They say that God is passionate that the spirit he has placed within us should be faithful to him.  And he gives grace generously.  As the Scriptures say, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’   So humble yourselves before God.” 
- James 4:5-7a NLT

Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.”- Colossians 3:23 NLT

P.S.  I never quite surrendered to that orange handwriting book.  While it’s legible, to this day, my handwriting is well – ugly.  On the contrary, Part 2 in this series will be about finding beauty in grunt work.

P.P.S. The picture above is of my little right-handed girl who will never get to use all of my left-handed handwriting excuses.  Bless her.  Teaching my child handwriting is one
frustrating hilarious prank on me!

What Your Spouse/Friend/Child Really Needs for Valentine's Day

If I make heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast but have not LOVE, I am just a clanging cymbal.

If I decorate my house with cute little Pinteresty Valentine stuff, but have not LOVE, I would be a noisy gong.

If I homeschool, spending all day everyday with my children teaching them constantly, but have not LOVE, I am nothing.

If I feed my children five times a day but have not LOVE, I would have gained nothing.

If I change diapers, read them sweet and wonderful books, brush their teeth twice a day, potty train, clean up their messes, teach them to clean their messes, play outside, take them to church, to the nursing home, to the library, give them my full attention but have not LOVE . . .

“If I had such faith that I could move mountains but didn’t love others, I would be nothing.  If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained NOTHING” (2 Corinthians 13:2b-3).

But if I do all these things day in and day out, surely that’s evidence that I do love my children!  But this is not about proving a case of how much we love our children.  If you think through this little list of things, you can imagine yourself doing them with a grouchy attitude and a frustrated “my-kids-are-so-unappreciative” grimace, OR you can imagine a woman who keeps loving, smiling, hugging, training her children, a woman who expects that yes, they’re going to behave like entitled little wretches until she deliberately, daily trains them to love as she loves.  I want to be that woman.

Real LOVE, the God-sized love, is always self-giving in nature.  As Martin Luther taught, it’s the heart curved out rather than the heart curved in on itself.  That’s what Christian discipleship (including motherhood) is—a heart curved out training little hearts to curve out instead of curving in on themselves.  Part of the frustration with ourselves (or with our children) is that we can’t fully “train” a heart to curve out; no, God Himself has to bend that heart right out by the power and presence of His Spirit.

A thousand times a day I make choices and have reactions that affect other people (usually three little people), and those reactions show which way my heart is curved.  All that I can do is bend to Him, and He bends my heart.  I’m so bad at this thing—this agape love thing—that lately I’ve been trying to bend to Him every half hour.  As Frank Laubach, a busy missionary to the Philippine Islands wrote, “I have started out trying to live all my waking moments in conscious listening to the inner voice, asking without ceasing, ‘What, Father, do you desire said?  What, Father do you desire done this minute? . . . Can a man working at a machine pray for people all day long, and at the same time do his task efficiently?  Can a mother wash dishes, care for the babies, continuously talking to God?”*

So far, I give this every-thirty-minute thing a good effort and fall off the wagon by nine a.m.  But I’m enjoying getting back on the wagon and deliberately turning to Him again.

It’s early morning, and my little ones just stumbled sleepy-eyed into my room, so to choose LOVE in this moment means I quit this writing and turn to what God has put in front of me here and now.  Here goes turning to the Grace-filler throughout this day to do in me that which I can’t do on my own!

Let love be your highest goal!1 Corinthians 14:1a NLT

Happy Valentine’s Day!

* Laubach, Frank.  “Letters by a Modern Mystic.”  Devotional Classics.  Ed.  Richard J. Foster and James Bryan Smith.  San Francisco:  Harper, 2005.  101-107.  Print.

What God Whispers to the Frustrated

With steam coming out of my ears and eyes blazing as fiery as my hair, I would love to tell you that the cause is a noble one.  Hardly.  Yet again, it’s my “frenemy”—kindergarten mathematics.  As the situation escalates, I’m trying (sort of) to remind myself, “Self, this is not worth it.  Who cares?!  It’s just kindergarten.  She’ll get it eventually!  Your relationship with your daughter is more important than this!”  But the frustration barrels over my self-talk; the Holy Spirit’s wisdom, “Slow.  Breathe.  Look at your child,” is muffled by my perseverant stupidity.  Here I am--I’m much less than I should be to my Little Bit in this moment.  AAHHH!

So of course, I had those blissful (NOT!) moments of guilt, self-loathing, ugghhhness while going through the motions—walking away from the math to slap mayo on six pieces of bread, mumbling prayers of repentance to Jesus, and then for the umpteenth day in a row, asking my Little Bit to forgive me for being unkind and impatient during math.  By mid-afternoon I’m praying AGAIN, “Lord, I got this wrong, right?  Homeschooling calling?  It’s all a big misunderstanding between us, right?  Clearly, I’m not good at this.  I mean, I’m good at math (ahhemm –pride), but I just can’t teach it well to a five-year-old, and you know, I can’t leave out the subject entirely forever.”

Jesus.  Ahh…His presence is so good.  His Spirit whispers back to my spirit the same thing I’ve said to women in far more serious predicaments than this one, “I will make a way.”  Jesus will make a way when there seems to be no way.

So here’s the happy ending:  He did make a way for the Little Bit and me!!!  It was beautiful!  (Even though I didn’t get to bail on homeschooling or the process of being made more patient, I did get to bail on math—sort of.  She got a new, gifted math teacher.)  I share my math teacher inadequacy with my Dear Husband.  He comes home from work, takes the Little Bit and her little table into a room with all the wonderful math manipulatives, and after about fifteen minutes, sounds of laughter and cheering are pouring out beneath the shut door.  Thirty minutes later they invite me in for a game.  I’m the contestant.  Little Bit is the gameshow host.  We both win the game.

God is good.  In a seemingly insignificant, routine day He reminds me that He’s infinitely creative.  He has solutions we can't even conceive.  And almost always those solutions involve relationships.  He humbles us by placing us in the posture of needing someone else.  (It's humbling because we all want to be so ridiculously self-sufficient at times.)  He’s present and working in all things.  Sometimes He changes our circumstances, but most of the time He changes us.  Either way...he knows which is best for us and leads us in that way.  He loves us so deeply that He meets us here in our little spots on the globe just as he met the leper, the lame, the little children, the sinful woman, the blind man on dusty roads on another little spot on the globe a couple thousand years ago.  The same Jesus.  The same Redeemer can redeem all things . . . can redeem all of us.

Trust God from the bottom of your heart;
    don’t try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;    
he’s the one who will keep you on track.
Don’t assume that you know it all.
--from The Message, Proverbs 3:5-7a