children

Measure

Posted on by Christine

I was washing dishes the other day, and I looked down at a large spoon in the sink. An unpleasant memory floated in.

I heard the gagging coming from the bathroom. I was hidden away but not far enough.

My mom was in a hurry, trying to get a meal thrown together. This was the height of having teens with multiple schedules and carting them all over town. I waited until I was dragged to the car, trying not to be in the way.

My brother Bob was first at the table because he had a meeting to attend, so he ate ahead of the rest of us.

I have heard that she was a great cook, but by the time I entered the family, she was opening cans, heating TV dinners, and had gone the way of convenience because it was easier. Good nutrition had been tossed aside, but no one went hungry. We ate our fill of synthetic substances and washed it down with whole milk.

One of the worst meals I had to get through was creamed chicken. A slab of white bread toasted to near burnt was then covered over with a sloppy mess of cream of mushroom soup and canned chicken. This was one of the higher end offerings that cost under $1 per plate. On the side, she dished out canned beets, the ultimate in disgusting. I learned early not to fight the system. You had to navigate around it.

I would strategically chew what I could with my teeth barely coming together and then take a huge sip of milk. Gulp and swallow on repeat.

“Can I have more milk?” This was usually microseconds of sitting down. I would hand her my glass for a refill.

One evening, I asked, and much to my horror, she denied my request.

“No, Chris. You are drinking way too much milk.”

I looked at what I had to handle without any liquid. It was rough, and from then on, I took smaller sips and never asked for a second cup.

You would think that when pizza was on the menu, I would have been thrilled. They managed to ruin that too. Two tiny frozen discs were put in the oven to feed eight people. To add bulk, canned mushrooms, black olives, and onions were smothered on.

Instead of adding shredded mozzarella like normal people, cheese squares were slapped on after they were unwrapped from their plastic packages.

I opted for a sandwich on those special occasions and refused to eat pizza until I realized it wasn’t a garbage pile like they had created.

So to hear someone gagging in the bathroom wasn’t surprising. It was going to happen sooner or later with the atrocities coming out of that kitchen.

There was yelling too.

“Bob! Hold still! Let me do this!”

More choking. If she was killing him, I wanted to witness it. By then, he and I weren’t on the greatest of terms as brother and sister, so to see him go down was worth taking a peek.

I rounded the corner into the laundry room. Things get slightly fuzzy, but I recall a large kitchen spoon shoved down his throat.

“Gag me with a spoon” wasn’t said until the 80s, so my mom was ahead of her time in the 70s.

My presence must have been noticed because the door suddenly shut, so I only got the audio version.

It reminded me of a situation I had been in not long before. I had an outbreak of canker sores that took over every square inch of my mouth. No one considered this a physical manifestation of stress.

A prescription was ordered, and all of them ascended on me. Where I stood watching my brother being assaulted with a serving utensil was where they all held me down. My arms and legs were immobile as someone else put a vice grip on my head. Her job was to pry my mouth open and squirt a paste that tasted like tin onto my tongue and gums.

Once I knew I was trapped against my will, I screamed. This made it easier for her to spray the obnoxious cream that would heal me.

It cleared up the issue, but I was scarred. I recall being afraid after that because I couldn’t trust anyone. Who knew when they would all snap again and pin me down?

From my five-year-old perception, I was under attack, and no one explained the process. Afterward, they left with no comfort or reassurance while I continued screaming. Now, she had set her sites on my brother, who was not cooperating.

My brother Jim saw me there and tried to explain.

“He ate some spoiled food.”

All the commotion was over a can of vegetables that had gone bad, with the fear of botulism setting in. I found out later that my other brother, a Boy Scout on his way up the ladder to Eagle Scout, had gotten out his manual to mix up a remedy to induce vomiting. When someone is out in the woods ingesting tree bark and wild, unknown grasses, they must be ready to hurl it out of the body.

With his magic spell book in hand, he grabbed a raw egg, milk of magnesia, and a host of other ingredients to cook up something that would save his sibling’s life. I think he added a dash of black pepper to make it more palatable.

The poisoned victim drank it like Happy Hour, and no throwing up resulted. My mom took matters into her hands and decided to force the issue. She plucked the largest metal spoon from the drawer and hoped to use his gag reflex as leverage.

I was ushered away from the scene because I have no recollection of what happened, but he lived to see another day to torment me more.

What my mother feared happening was rare and unlikely. After he had devoured his food and left, she detected a foul odor from the vegetables in a pot. Retrieving the aluminum can, she saw it had a dent, which made her panic.

She had read about the unsafe canning practices at the time, and if one was not fully sealed, this could allow in deadly bacteria.

Not on her watch.

To ensure he lived to a ripe old age, she jammed a utensil into his esophagus. We had emergency rooms back then, but she was on a schedule. There were two other people to drive to their activities, so her method seemed the better option.

For her.

It was one of those landmark moments in our family where I often heard it said: do you remember when Bob ate that rotten can of beans?

No one wanted to think of it as she assembled our plates. Our life was in her hands.

Being in a large family on a tight budget, she controlled our portions. In other families I visited, the entire meal would be on the table and was passed around to each member to take what they desired. In some homes, everyone fended for themselves. Her dishing it up meant we had to conform to what she thought was best. And there better not be any complaints because she was exhausted from opening all those cans.

She put on a good front, not showing her worry regarding the lack of money. One time she said to me,

“Chris, I think it’s an adventure to see how God will provide.”

She seemed like a woman with great faith, but her actions said otherwise. She wasn’t a giver, and she viewed money as evil. Somewhere along the way, she saw it as an idol that could take God’s place, and her viewpoint caused great suffering for all of us.

She decided to play God by controlling every bite taken and all the details of the house. It was a false sense of reality we all had to abide by. After a while, that way of living starts to seem real.

Like the gigantic spoon, she shoved down my brother’s throat, she forced her will on our lives and blotted out God’s. There were better alternatives for her to take, but she decided what was best.

This mindset spilled over into many areas beyond providing food.

We were all told what to do and how to do it. There was no room for independent thinking even though many times she said to me,

“I have raised all of my children to be independent.”

I’m not sure what the badge of honor was, but when you examine the statement closer, you see the flaws in that thinking. While it’s important to be your true self, it’s also valuable to let others into your life that bring support and love.

She believed her actions were done in the best interests of all, but the outcome was fractured individuals who had no sense of security and unable to make decisions that were for their highest good.

Thrown on top of the control was perfectionism, which added to the constraint of having no freedom. While many kids were happy to be out of school and rest in the comfort of their homes, this was not the way it was. There was always some task to perform or rule to meet.

If you stayed in bed too long on the weekend, you were deemed lazy. If you stayed up too late at night, you “weren’t getting proper rest.” It wasn’t a situation you could ever win, and it wasn’t until many years later that I began to see how much her idea of life was flawed.

She never allowed anyone to be themselves. We were to be replicas of who she was. And when it came time to be on my own, I had trouble making decisions.

I was worried about making the wrong ones due to all the years of having to meet her lofty expectations. On the other hand, I was intelligent and considered myself competent. There was a constant war inside of me where I was trying to please others while sacrificing myself. This way of operating leaves no room for balance.

The dangerous part of living this way is you’re never at peace. If you do this for a long time, you become accustomed to the inner turmoil and don’t see you need to break it off yourself.

Until your world completely unravels, and you have no other choice but to ask yourself what is causing certain patterns to continue that revolve around your low self-esteem. Why are you masking the truth and faking it?

That’s when compassion shows up.

I see situations differently than I did before and this branches into more revelations. It’s not a suffocating confrontation that leaves no room to breathe. There might be regrets or unhappy feelings momentarily, but I know I will be a better person once I get past it.

It’s when you have taken in a spiritual toxin and are unaware God will move in and remove it, so you no longer are endangered. That’s how true love works. It doesn’t come at you threateningly, holding you down while you struggle, demanding its way.

A different approach is taken where grace is given in small doses, allowing you to heal and adjust to each measure.

She gave new meaning to being “spoon fed”

Comedy

Posted on by Christine

He would swoop in out of nowhere, and the harassment would begin. I was allowed to ride my bike on one street my mother had deemed safe. It was close enough for her to walk to or yell out the back door when I was needed at home.

My friends and I would buzz along, minding our own business, and a police siren would send the alarm that we weren’t alone. My older brother was talented in sound effects, and he made it seem authentic.

I had learned to look over my back, so I could outrun him if I had the chance. He had caught on to my dodging technique and would keep silent until he was right up on me. Easily I should have been able to escape, but he had a partner who would get in front of me while he closed in from behind. Ultimately, I stopped to avoid running into the neighbor kid, his minion.

If he got me in the middle of the road, he would demand I pull over to the curb, like the city officially licensed him to be an officer. Once I complied, he would take out a pad of paper and a pencil to write my ticket. He would purposely stare at the sky, trying to come up with something. He should have flunked every class in school because of inattention, but when it came to this, he was perfect in his penmanship. 

“How fast were you going, do you think?”  He would say in this nasal tone that sounded nothing like him in our house that was two lawns over. 

I had no speedometer on my bike, but I had to go through the motions to get away from him faster.

“I don’t know! 20?”

“20 what? 20 miles per hour? I think that is low. I think you were going way faster than that.”

“50! I was going 50!”

“No. I think it was less than 50.”

It was like playing the higher or lower game on the Price is Right.

“40?!”

He would sigh, put the eraser on his chin, tilt his head and ponder the situation. Meanwhile, my friends were racing by laughing because they thought he was hilarious. 

“You might be right about that. 40 sounds about right,” he would state in slow motion. Like a record being played backward. 

Scribbling down a number, he would then proceed to inspect my vehicle. 

“That back end looks like it’s ready to fall off. When was the last time you had that checked?”

My young mind would go blank trying to answer questions that didn’t make sense. 

I was given a bike used by every kid in the family that my dad had repainted, put on a banana seat, and had multi-colored plastic spoke covers. 

“I don’t know if those are street legal. We might have to take them off.”

On and on he went walking around jotting down infractions that should have warranted my removal from society. 

“Let me go!”I would say after giving him plenty of time to annoy me.

“Are you talking back to a police officer, Chris? I will have to add that. That’s not good.” 

When I thought it would never end, he would tear the sheet off with a grand flair and hand it to me.

“I don’t ever want to see you do that again,” he would say, walking away. I had no idea what he meant. Then, he would focus his attention on my friends.

After witnessing my humiliation, you would think they would want nothing to do with it. It was just the opposite. They could hardly wait their turn because they thought he was humorous. 

From their standpoint, I would have too, but I had to live with him, and it was non-stop entertainment before streaming services were available. Once he set his attention on me, I knew I had to figure out a way to get out of it. Sometimes, it was so bizarre I sat transfixed, trying to comprehend what his brain was doing; he knew this tactic worked to keep me involved longer. 

“Do you see this container?” he said, coming into the living room. 

I was reading a book, nowhere near his domain. I had conditioned myself to ignore his inquiries because this was the starting point of the marathon that was about to take place. 

I made the mistake of looking up. He was holding a plastic margarine tub. Our mom was a survivor of the Great Depression, so anything toxic like that was used for leftovers or a spare set of keys. Whatever she could think of to put in one, it was never thrown away.

I saw him swallow and blink a few times as he said,

“This is all some people will get for Christmas this year.” He cupped it in his hands like it was valuable.

“What?” I said, breaking my code of silence. That is all it took to get the party started. 

“Some people, Chris, will only get this under their tree.”

That’s when I saw the tears form in his eyes. I blame him for my forehead wrinkles that began in my pre-teens. 

“Isn’t it so…” he cleared his throat and let the drips fall. “Isn’t it awful? Someone will get this as a gift this year, and that’s going to be it.”  He broke into a complete bawling session worthy of a funeral. The Academy Awards had missed their opportunity for best actor. 

His skills didn’t stop with sorrow. 

“Let’s fight in slow motion,” he suggested one time.

“What is that?”

“We throw punches at each other, but you don’t really hit the other person. You go slow, so no one gets hurt.” 

That sounded like a fantastic idea to me. I could take swings and get out my frustration without injuring either of us. 

In the basement, far from where my mom could see, we began to go around in a circle, with fists raised and jabbing toward one another. It was all going along as planned until I moved in the direction of one his fists striking me right on my nose. I dropped my arms and looked into his frightened eyes. The blood began to pour out of a nostril. 

I didn’t realize he was capable of moving so fast. He did everything at half the pace of the rest of the world. 

“Get into my room!” he demanded as I saw the bright red blood on my palm, signaling the wail he knew was about to erupt. 

He pushed me onto his bunk bed and ran into the bathroom to get a tissue. I got up to find my mom, a registered nurse, but he blocked me before I could. 

“Sit down! Put this up your nose!”  He was whisper yelling. “Shh! Be quiet!”

Had I known the punishment he would have received, I would have screamed at the top of my lungs, but he looked so scared that I followed his orders. 

“See? You’re fine. It’s stopping.” 

I sniffed a few times and tasted the blood go down the back of my throat.

“Pinch your nose. That will help.”  He had suddenly gotten his medical license. He ran back into the bathroom and brought another wad of toilet paper. Moving quickly wasn’t usual, so I knew he was terrified. I heard him flush the evidence on one of his trips there and back.

Eventually, the bleeding stopped, and he was out of the woods. 

It was one of only a handful of times that he and I started laughing about how stupid we looked. 

His most outstanding performance came in the summer.

A group of girls were at our house, fangirling over him. He was born with the ability to drum, and like Ringo from the Beatles, the same peers who thought he was amazing as a police officer ranked him highly as an international musician. 

“Do you want to try?” he asked one of them, handing over his sticks. Barely able to keep her knees from buckling, she walked up to him, and he gave her tips on how to play. One by one, they were warmly welcomed to his set.

I knew what was coming as I observed.

“Chris should play,” one of them said.

“I am out of time for today, but maybe next time.”

He shot me a shark teeth grin because he never let me near his drumset. It was covered with a cloth when he wasn’t playing, and if he ever caught me near it, I knew I would be in trouble. Whatever that meant, I didn’t want to find out.

After the drum lesson, he decided it would be fun to scare all of us. 

For some reason, his performance in horror was also one of his strong points. I would be watching tv, and he would enter the room and stand in front of me to block my view, giving a long-winded speech about nonsense. In the middle of his talk, he would stop, appear to see something over my head that was terrifying, and begin to play the role.

“Chris! It’s coming! I can’t stop it!” He would lower his voice as if to warn me not to move and upset the unseen monster approaching. 

The first time this happened, I fell for it and whipped my head around, jumping up to protect myself. He walked away, throwing his head back, laughing.   The next time, I steeled myself mentally, trying to ignore his expressions of panic because what if this time he wasn’t faking? What if there was a hideous creature sneaking up to devour me? I reasoned that he wouldn’t care, so why bother moving? 

I caught him off guard once and did it back to him. He never did it again. 

“I am going to build a haunted house,” he announced that day after enthralling them with his drumming. In their eyes, he was the perfect brother. 

He went into a back room where my parents kept a giant freezer. He shut the door while we waited outside, listening to him bang objects around. He taped a note to the door:

Knock Before Entering

A brave girl tapped lightly on the door, and it swung open with a creaking sound accompanying it. He had shut off all the lights. I remember her turning and looking at me for advice. I had been in that room a million times, but with it dark, it appeared to be a new addition. 

She mustered up the courage and went in while the door automatically shut behind her. That sent a wave of fear through the entire group. His engineering skills were better than I thought.

Each took their turn, and as usual, I was last. I followed the instructions, and I was allowed to enter. The sound of a drum reverberated off the walls. The space was small so that I could feel it in my chest. Tucked away underneath the stairs, he was seated, banging on a brown plastic wastebasket. To add to his costume, he had taken a towel off the clotheslines where my mom hung the wash to dry. Wrapped around his head, looking like a swami, he pretended to be a mind reader.

From where I stood, it was low budget with a single light bulb burning.

“Enter,” he said. I was pretty much in.

He made moaning sounds like he was summoning the dead while he struck the wastebasket. Mr. Amazing had not thought about a hot light source melting the plastic container he was beating on, causing it to smoke. Jumping up, he tried to put it out before it became an inferno. His future was looking bleak.

I assumed my role as the runner.

“Mom!” I yelled up the stairs with all my friends watching. “Bob is setting the house on fire!”

I heard the stomping of feet in the kitchen above. I moved away before she ran me over. 

Running into the dark, she was unaware of the ropes he had used to make the door open and shut. Her neck got caught, so she began to claw her way to freedom. The smell of smoke drifted out to where I was with the rest of the audience. 

“Bob! What are you doing?” she screeched, somewhat constricted. Alfred Hitchcock had never directed or produced such a work. It was as if a snake had wrapped itself around her throat.

Unsure how he fixed the problem, it was rare to see him subjected to her wrath, but it was her favorite trash bin with a gaping hole in the bottom. Between coughing from the smoke and the choking of the ropes, she let him have it.

While dealing with him and all of his antics, he taught me that fear is temporary. Just throw a switch, and it can be transformed into laughter. What appeared to be so scary ended up backfiring and became a comedy.

Balancing the Scale

Posted on by Christine

“Step on the scale,” she said. “I need to see how much you weigh.”

I hadn’t any time to sit in the waiting room to wring my hands while staring at the closed door. That was usually the case when I previously breezed into a clinic for a check-up. I would clutch a book in my hand and nervously try to read with my mind elsewhere. I would imagine the condemnation of not liking the number I saw flash on the digital screen, followed by the noose-like grip that the blood pressure cuff would take on my arm, causing that uncomfortable feeling of my pulse ripping through my bicep.

Then there was the question and answer round regarding my lifestyle, such as did I take supplements. How was I feeling? Am I independently wealthy, and do I cut coupons before I grocery shop? It always feels like a pop quiz where I hope I get the answer right about myself. I expect a loud buzzer to go off while I am ushered out with a tongue depressor as a parting gift.

No, there wasn’t any time to adjust to my surroundings before she called my name. I was headed for the section C seats not to watch a sporting event or have a baby delivered but to start my ritual of pre-check-up overthinking. But I was summoned before I could pick out my spot as far away as possible.

Immediately after being allowed through the door where all the magic happens, she gave me the order to get on the scale.

“Already?” I said. I had no time to do a couple extra push-ups or wall squats to take off a few extra inches. It was like being on The Biggest Loser in the middle of the hallway where any passerby could see my weight and gasp.

Where had this complex come from? Why had I hated the weigh-in process so much? Maybe it had something to do with a required class from long ago.

In 7th grade, we began a journey into the world of placing ourselves before the prying eyes of someone who might share a desk next to us in math, home economics, or English. How does this reflect an authentic life experience? Wasn’t school supposed to prepare us for the real world? No office setting would ever require its employees to strip down to their underwear and bare their acne, scars, and moles to their coworkers.

We had to do it no matter how self-conscious we felt or not graduate six years later. That was always the threat. Conform or be left behind.

Some of us gathered our clothes and ran for the bathroom stalls or the protective barrier of the showers. Elementary school never held our feet to the fire like this. We were told to cover our coughs, don’t push your neighbor, and be on your best behavior.

At the height of body changes, we had to take it all off and not bat an eyelash.

Having learned how to skirt being unclothed in front of the people I would sit next to at my high school graduation, I then had to endure the ultimate of humiliation.

The Presidential Fitness Test.

By the looks of our government leaders and officials, they skipped gym class during this unit of study.

But the rest of us had to participate or be subjected to a firing squad in detention. I had been through this before, but they added an element that was downright deplorable. We stood in a line, and they rolled in a scale from the nurse’s office where no one had set foot on it. The rattling sound sent a shockwave of horror for those who were too self-aware of our weight.

From the time I was born, my mom always made this announcement,

“I have always weighed 110 pounds. No more and no less.”

It was like a broken record and usually stated right around the time of my physical exams as she would take note of my number, which was at least twenty more and climbing as I grew.

My frame easily made muscle from the slightest form of exercise. This increased my result on the scale, but that was an undisclosed health secret back then.

In addition to her weight, she said,

“My foot has always been a size 5.”

Not only was I three sizes larger, but I had to wear wide.

“I hate my feet,” I told her before bed one night.

With a shocked expression, she said,

“Why?”

“They are too big. Yours are smaller than mine.”

The frown indicated she was seeing the error of her ways.

“Some people don’t have feet or legs, Chris. So be thankful for what you have. You can walk and run.”

It didn’t make much of a dent in my view of myself because by the time I expressed those feelings, I was at the height of self-hatred. She had planted the seeds for years, and the crop grew out of control with wild abandon.

I figured I would keep my weight and shoe size hidden as much as possible. Putting something into a far dark corner always solves it, right? It was the only form of self-preservation I had in my arsenal at that age.

It was one thing to have to undress in front of others, but now I was being set up for more ridicule by my peers. The year before, I had suffered under the bullying of a boy who sat inches from me, and at home, I had an older brother who made sure I knew every day that I was fat and ugly.

With all of these factors, is it any wonder why a simple invention that measures my pounds would bother me so much?

The teacher parked the contraption in the middle of the room. My formal name, first, middle, and last, was called out just like my mom did when I was in trouble, so psychological trigger number three reared its ugly head.

My footsteps echoed off all the walls as I moved toward what seemed like a guillotine, with no sound coming from anybody. I stepped on the black platform, and the entire measuring mechanism slid to the far right with a loud metal grating sound.

With clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other, she squinted and slid the marker back and forth and one final time back until she landed on a number that seemed fitting. Not having an ounce of a social filter, she loudly announced my number as she wrote it on her sheet.

Body shaming was not considered illegal back then but a right of passage through puberty. I distinctly heard the slight giggles of those who didn’t have triple digits next to their names. They were the ones who had mastered hair flips, the art of applying lip gloss, and had on designer gaucho boots.

Once we were properly disgraced, it was on to physical agility. How many sit-ups and pull-ups could we do with the stopwatch ticking away? There was a standard to achieve, and if you fell short, you were considered an outcast.

Those more athletic were usually the males who walked around like gorillas thumping their chests and lording it over the rest of us losers. Many of the girls were instantly checked off as failures, especially the malnourished ones.

Out of all the drills we had to perform, the ropes that hung from ceiling to the ground were the most ominous because I was afraid of heights. Climbing a step stool mere inches off the floor caused a swirly feeling in my stomach.

We were expected to jump on those ropes like monkeys and climb our way up and back, all under the watch of the clock. It didn’t matter what direction I was going. A rope burn would occur on some part of me. It wasn’t a maybe. It was a certainty.

Going up wasn’t bad, and I’m sure my time would have made the record books. The way down chewed up the clock because backward and up high are not a nice combination.

We left exhausted, and a part of our soul had died. The next day, we were back on the scale, and my weight was up an ounce.

When I saw the number at the clinic, it was the first time I felt peace and didn’t care. It’s interesting when you have lost weight, and you know you were about twenty pounds heavier last time, that you aren’t so bad off.

As soon as that hurdle is cleared, they present you with your BMI that screams you are in the overweight category, just in case you start to feel overconfident.

This is when you begin to see how your value should not be attached to a range of numbers on paper. It should be a guide but not a live or die proclamation.

Our society glorifies and promotes “the perfect” who have flaws but mask them. The public school system conditions us early to consider ourselves a number, whether on a scale or a test score. It becomes our identity that spills over into a bank account, a wage that determines what we do for employment and our age.

What has God numbered? Matthew 10:30 says,

But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. (AMP)

What happens when those become gray?

Proverbs 16:31: Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life.

It is challenging to separate who we are from what we believe. God doesn’t look at us in the way that the world does. We are carriers of a highly crafted divine spirit that gets little to no recognition in public. It’s usually ignored.

I did not go to the doctor and discuss how many prayers I had seen answered, how many people I had shown compassion to or helped when I didn’t have to. Where’s that scorecard? There isn’t one because God doesn’t keep track of that, either.

You are on earth to learn, figure out your purpose, and live it to the fullest. This comes by direct communication to the One who sent you. You listen to what is spoken and let all the distractions fall away.

Jeremiah 29:11 says:

11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (NIV)

Until I examined the factors contributing to why I detested being weighed, it didn’t make sense to me. My reaction was to feel ashamed, and it had become an automatic response. Much like Pavlov’s dogs hearing a bell ring to start drooling, mine was to feel guilt at the thought of my weight, no matter what it was.

Where are these people I allowed to create an unhealthy stronghold in my mind? My mom is in heaven, and my peers are long gone, so their voices should have been silenced long ago.

A “bad” number can motivate a person to do better, but what if you are doing your best, and no matter the result, you still beat yourself up? That’s where you figure out the why, and in that puzzle-solving experience, you see where the errors in your thinking have been so you can correct them.

While maintaining a healthy life, you don’t make it an obsession. You bless your body and be grateful for its hard work. This is a great accomplishment toward balancing the scale.

I read in a book recently that if you put your fruit on the counter instead of in the refrigerator, you will be more likely to eat it. So, I put these on top of my container of brownies.

Lessons

Posted on by Christine

When my girls were young, I paid close attention to their interests. With home education, you spend a lot of time in the same space and pick up on where your kid’s curiosity lies. In my experience of going through the public school system, there was little room for free thinking. We were given our work and sat at a desk, slugging our way through material we had little interest in. It was a requirement to get somewhere in life. 

How many apples are in the basket? That one was to help with grocery shopping because we all go to the store with wicker baskets over our arms.   

Count the chickens because we all had them in our backyards roaming free range against city ordinances. 

Circle the letter F. That had nothing to do with curse words. It was simply learning the alphabet so one could identify a fudgesicle from a frankfurter which we always said hot dog, anyway, so what was the point?  

“Class, pass your paper to your neighbor so they can grade it.”

Words of dread because I always sat by someone who seemed to have it in for me. With their fat crayon wedged between their fingers, poised and ready to strike, I kept one eye on my work and one on the sheet in front of me. When I had to mark something wrong, I always felt a wave of guilt.

I see now how this took the pressure off the instructor. They didn’t have to be the bad bearer of news. It was peer against peer, which may be why the aggression at recess happened later. Some child was subjected to a thrashing on their spelling sheet, which built up anger all day. 

Like caged animals, we were given a few short gulps of fresh air, and for somebody who had been wronged, this was the perfect time to act and release those hostile feelings in a way the teacher might not notice. 

I have often wondered why Mary bit me in the arm that day. We were sitting under some trees talking when suddenly, she sunk her teeth into my right bicep. I don’t recall if I checked over her work and she was carrying a grudge, but when I got home and told my mom, she immediately disinfected my entire body, even though it had happened right after lunch, and it was now late afternoon.

Not to speak badly, but her teeth were dirty and some a bit ragged like fangs. My mom knew that the family often struggled with keeping up appearances, like combed hair and a drop of Crest now and again. So her response was to protect her young one from having a medical malady. 

If rabies had settled in, I was past the point of no return by the time she got her hands on me. However, she relished having an emergency on hand that she could stop.  

I made it without a single sniffle or infection, enough so that I had to, unfortunately, return to the classroom the next day. 

I bypassed the public school system’s way of educating and opted to home school before it was popular. I was met with many questions about the well being of my children.

“So she won’t get to ride on the bus?”

This was one of many inquiries I had to answer as if that were a significant milestone. I harkened back mentally to when I had to ride the bus to high school. It wasn’t like a limo picked me up by the end of the driveway. I had to walk three blocks through ice and snow and sometimes run to ensure I got on in time or face the wrath of a mom who didn’t want to drive me.  

My brother, six and a half years older than me, would often follow me in his car and sing obnoxious songs while I tried to ignore him. He never offered to give me a ride but practiced his opera skills, much to my horror. 

At the start of my day, I was subjected to humanity that had no manners, no volume control on their voices, and some forgot all about the personal hygiene habits we learned in health class.

She was missing out on nothing. 

The only drawback about teaching them at home was that I saw every activity as a school experience. I had to learn early on that making a tray of ice cubes didn’t have to turn into a science experiment. It was just ice cubes. 

One day, while I was out in a garden I used to have in the backyard, and both of them were with me, I had a moment of clarity. Most caretakers only get to spend so much time with their kids. It struck me as a blessing while digging around in the dirt and depositing seeds into the soil. My oldest daughter and I discussed a subject from her school work like it was a regular conversation.  

How many times had I crossed the threshold of my parent’s home to be asked:

What did you learn today?  

I wanted to reply, how to hate school, that is what I learned. How to avoid detention, how to sleep with your eyes open, and how not to lash out at the child next to you who was clicking their pen repeatedly. Valuable life skills to be applied if a person was incarcerated at any time. 

But, in my home, speaking about what was being learned was a natural part of our days, and it also gave me insight into what the two of them might want to participate in. I discovered early that the older one preferred something other than contact sports.  

She tried her hand at soccer at one of the home school events. She had the ball all to herself and could have easily taken it down the field for a shot at the goal. But then, out of nowhere, a boy came along to challenge her. She stopped dead in her tracks, looked at him, and said,

“You can have it.”

Competition was not her speed. She took up ice skating and was fantastic. 

The other one I was not so sure. She approached life a little differently, and when I asked, she would always say she didn’t know. 

One day, as I walked through the kitchen, I saw her dancing, similar to a cartoon character she and her sister watched.

I asked her if she liked to dance, and that is when I enrolled her in the first dance studio. She had a natural talent for it, just like her sister did for skating. After her first year, I moved her to a different location that offered more of a modest approach to music and movement.

Because she was coming in a little bit behind the class for her age, she had to dance for the instructor alone. We showed up early one day so she could do so. The woman teaching her was kind and patient as she ran through various moves to see where her strengths and weaknesses were.  

“It’s all about muscle memory,” she said at the end of the session. “You are very good at what I asked you to do, but the connection has to be made between your brain and your body. As you practice each week, you will get better and better.”

By the time the recital came in the spring, she had made so much progress that she moved on to the next level. The teacher’s words proved to be true. The repetition had created a neural pathway between her mind and the physical part of her. She now did a technique that had been uncertain and awkward with precision and ease as if it had never been a challenge.  

When the report cards came out at the end of her second year, she was asked to repeat where she had been so she could improve. It was stated clearly that it was normal for students to take the same level two years in a row, so most girls stayed together throughout the program.  

The other day, she pointed out that I had kept one of her performance skill sheets. I had folded it and put it in a kitchen cupboard. I don’t know why other than it was the year I got divorced, and I kept it as a reminder that I did my best to make things as normal as possible for both of them. 

Because money wasn’t as abundant during that time, I offered to clean the studios on the weekends to help offset her tuition so she could keep dancing as usual.

When I looked at the sheet, I realized how gentle the explanations were where she needed improvement.

She was praised as a good dancer, and pointers were given in specific areas needing improvement. It wasn’t meant to rip her down but to have her aspire to a higher point where she could perform more confidently and pay less attention to each step.

This type of report and how it is worded can either contribute to a person’s life or cause damage, especially to a child.  

Proverbs 18:21 says,

Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit—you choose. (Message)

As I read over what was written, I felt a difference in the approach of it versus what I had been subjected to in my youth. I could feel the love radiating from the paper, like the person who filled it out wanted my daughter to succeed and not get stuck thinking that she wasn’t meant to dance. Her carefully chosen words were meant to be received not as harsh criticism but as a mentor offering encouragement. 

That is who God is; as we learn new things, we are given signs and positive thoughts that keep us going. We see the highlights of what we have grasped spiritually and where we have the potential to go. 

I read long ago that God doesn’t need to test us. It’s similar to how I viewed parenting my girls. They didn’t have to prove themselves to me. And, often in our homeschool days, when we did school work, I didn’t make tests the end of the world.  

I wanted them to learn and retain information, not memorize, to pass an exam. A test can take an hour, but real education is acquiring knowledge that can last for the rest of an individual’s life. The goal was to take away valuable skills they could apply daily.

One subject where we often went against nonconventional schooling was math. If a problem was complex and needed to be solved readily, I would get out my teacher’s manual, and we would look at the solution.

That is cheating. No, that is learning.  

If we had the answer, we could go step by step without the pressure and find what we needed by working it out on paper. 

Who said there had to be a rough path to finding the answer? More often than not, when we did it this way, the information was retained so that they could recall how to get the correct answer by the time they got to a test. 

Timed tests, pressure, and a strict approach did not bring about good results, so I taught them in a way that helped them succeed. A relaxed state was the key to outstanding achievement. 

It’s too bad that more of what we are subjected to isn’t fashioned this way because it’s the nature of God that many of us miss. After all, we have been conditioned to perform the world’s way, which is about competition and test taking.

God wants us to use the gifts we have been given to benefit those around us and doesn’t push us toward an invisible finish line where we mentally and physically drain ourselves and others to get there.

When I folded up the paper and put it back in the cupboard where it had been for 15 years, I heard this:

Dancers don’t take tests. They take lessons.

We all could use a little more ‘energy’, couldn’t we?

Super

Posted on by Christine

When my girls were young, I wanted to take them to a resort about four hours from home. We had been there before with people who owned a timeshare, so it was paid for, but I discovered that we could rent a cabin on the property and use the pools scattered throughout. Instead of being cramped in a tiny hotel room for days, this was a nice option to try for. And, near to it, there are various waterparks and activities that the girls loved to do.

The only obstacle standing in my way was my ex-husband, who told me he didn’t want to spend the money on it. We had plenty of money to do this, but he decided he didn’t want to go. In an attempt to throw me off, he said,

“If you somehow come up with the money and rent it, we can go.”

If this was a poker competition, his money was on himself, thinking I was an at-home mom homeschooling two young kids. In other words, I wasn’t smart enough to come up with the funds because I was not employed, and he held onto the purse strings.

I knew God wanted this for my kids, so I decided to have a garage sale.

The night before, while marking everything, he walked through the garage shaking his head like I was the dumbest person he had ever met. I had included another mom who also was interested in making the trip with us. We kept our items separate.

The sale netted us enough money to pay for the needed cabins and everything else the kids wanted to do. So much for being dumb.

The resort had listed all of its amenities on the website, including an indoor pool and hot tubs in case there was inclement weather.

When we got to the location, the “friend” who had done the sale with me walked into the registration building. When we got to the counter, we were informed that the indoor pool was being repaired. An electrical storm had somehow wiped out its functioning, so they had to close it.

“We are giving everyone passes to go to the Howard Johnson’s up the street so you can swim in their indoor pool. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

I didn’t think anything of it because many outdoor pools throughout the property were set around a golf course. The forecast predicted nice weather, so the need for an indoor pool was not heavy on my mind.

But, this woman who I was coming to find out was not the nicest, said,

“You advertised an indoor pool here. And, now you are telling me you don’t have one?”

“Yes. We are sorry, but we had a bad storm that left the electrical part of the pool unsafe, so we are in the process of fixing it. You and your family are welcome to use the Howard Johnson’s pool. This has the code on it so you can access that area.”

He pushed a piece of paper toward her with a number on it. She shoved it back at him.

I was filling out a form regarding our car with our license plate identification on it. I had just glanced out the window and was headed back to the desk when I saw this exchange begin.

“That is not good enough!” she snapped.

Her husband was out in the car, hiding, I assumed. Why I thought it was a good idea to bring her along, I do not know. My people-pleasing habits have taken a while to die.

It had gotten to the point where if I called their home, he would answer the phone with a whisper and go into a hall closet to speak to me because she didn’t want him talking and laughing with me on the phone as friends. Her control freak nature was rearing its ugly head more and more. She wanted me all to herself.

Often, he would speak to me and quickly say he would get her. There was no way he would want to deal with her Godzilla attitude at the front desk.

The employee swallowed down his fear and said,

“I don’t know how else to solve this problem for you.”

“I paid to have an indoor pool!”

The guy’s eyes caught mine, and I was hoping he didn’t think I was like her just because we walked in the door together.

“I know. And, we are really sorry about that…this is why we are sending people to Howard Johnson’s to try and accommodate everyone.”

“I am not a Howard Johnson’s type of person!” she said with a snarl. Ugly comes in many forms, not just in appearance but in attitude.

What? She had told me she had hardly ever been on vacation, so I was confused about where this entitled attitude was coming from.

Out of nowhere came another employee who was not as discreet as the man trying to help.

“He has explained to you our situation. Howard Johnson’s is it, or nothing.”

“That is not good enough!”

“What do you want me to do? Build you a pool, lady?” said the fresh helper.

My traveling companion then went to nuclear.

“I will contact the management here and let them know you did not go out of your way to compensate me for not having an indoor pool!”

With that, she swiped her papers off the counter and stormed out.

Both employees looked at me. Great.

“I apologize for her behavior,” I said. “I do not share her viewpoint.”

I could not say it enough. My two daughters had watched the entire exchange along with the lady’s two kids.

When I went to say goodnight to my two that night, I whispered,

“I am setting my alarm, and we are going to the indoor pool.” I did not say a word to anyone else.

The following day, while the two men went golfing, I quickly got my two in their suits, and we drove to the Howard Johnson’s. They had a great time swimming and using the hot tub. This was before cell phones, so no one could get a hold of us. And no one knew where we were.

I faced the firing squad when I returned.

“We were looking for you! Where did you go?” she asked the minute I stepped out of the car.

“Howard Johnson’s to swim,” I said without blinking. I wanted to see what reaction I would get.

“Oh,” she said. “Why didn’t you ask us to go?”

“Because you made it quite clear yesterday that you were not a Howard Johnson’s type person. You said that to everyone at the front desk.”

I did not hear one more tirade from this woman for the rest of the time we were there. I wasn’t as predictable as she thought I was.

Did she and I remain friends? No.

Her controlling nature became so severe that even my best people-pleasing nature couldn’t cut it anymore. The more I bowed down to her demands, the worse she became to the point where she was verbally abusive toward me. When I refused to continue being her friend, she tried to turn everyone against me. I preserved, and she is long gone in my rearview mirror.

I had convinced myself that God would not be happy with me if I let her go, so I kept myself attached to her. It got to the point, however, where I was either going to please her, lose myself or break free and be genuine. Sometimes you have to be not liked. And unpopular. It’s just the way it goes.

Proverbs 22:24-25 says, Don’t hang out with angry people; don’t keep company with hotheads.
Bad temper is contagious—don’t get infected. (Message)

That’s the risk you take. You can morph into what you consistently keep company with, so choose those who are God’s best.

As a side note, the ex-spouse was rewarded for not generously giving me the money for the vacation. Shortly after we got home, he cleaned his closet. He made a pile of clothes that no longer fit him as he had ‘grown’. This was intended for the garbage. The other, he was going to keep.

As I walked through the living room, he watched the garbage truck pick up and dump the contents of the can with all the sludge.

“I put all the clothes I wanted to keep in the wrong pile! He just dumped everything into the truck! I have no clothes to wear now except for what I have on! I have to go buy all new ones!”

I wanted to say..why don’t you have a garage sale? But I was too afraid back then to say anything like that. I just kept on walking. Silence is golden, and you let the situation speak for itself, like swimming at Howard Johnson’s on your own.

Galatians 6:7 spells it out pretty plainly:

Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life. (Message)

There’s another verse in James 4:6 that says:

It’s common knowledge that “God goes against the willful proud; God gives grace to the willing humble.”(Message)

When you walk in humility and do your best to follow God’s way, it may not always be easy, but I have found that you won’t regret how you treat others. You can end each day knowing that you are doing it right, being led through a life that is spiritually super.

(These usually don’t have a pool, just saying..)

Illusion

Posted on by Christine

Having two daughters spaced four years apart had its challenges. The younger one always wanted to be as advanced as her sister and was slightly annoyed if she felt I was paying more attention to her sibling. She made sure I knew it. Even before she could speak, she would make it known that she wanted to be the top dog.

She noticed early on that our physical abilities were superior to hers, and she wasn’t happy until she was on the same level.

She learned to crawl by eight months old and began to pull herself up by using the furniture to hang on to within that same time frame.

One night, she saw that we were sitting with a blanket over us. My oldest daughter had meticulously set up her pillow, a few stuffed animals and had settled in next to me, absolutely content watching one of her favorite shows.

The other one came by, pulled on the blanket, and screeched. She pulled so hard that before I could lift her that it sent her sister’s enormous bowl of popcorn showering all over us. The quilt we were using ended up on the ground. The stuffed animals were in a crumpled mess with pillows scattered everywhere.

Like that magic trick where the person pulls the tablecloth, but the silverware doesn’t budge.

Jealousy and competition had given her the strength of ten people. It was so shocking to witness an infant take over like that.

While we cleaned up the mess, she sat on the floor laughing.

She progressed quickly from barely walking and was fully able to run by nine months old. Not always steadily, but with speed.

“Mom! Help!”

I saw the two of them run by, but the younger one had gotten a hold of the back of her sister’s nightgown. She had her in a hostage situation, clutching onto the material with both hands. While the little one beamed with glee, the other one panicked.

“Mom! She has me! Help!”

It was the strangest sight to see the younger one executing such a power play over someone who could easily outmatch her.

“You do know she’s a baby. You are four. You are older and can get away from her?”

I unhooked her from her kidnapper so she could go free.

When the oldest was learning to print her name when she turned 5, I thought it would be a great idea to have her write it on all the valentines for a homeschool party she would attend with other kids her age. I figured after 40 of them, she would have it down pretty good.

I didn’t want to leave the other out even though she did not yet possess the motor skills. I found her a little purple ink stamp with her name on it so she could use it.

Before I left the room, I said,

“Only use that on the paper, okay? Don’t put that on anything but the paper.”

She nodded in understanding.

I left for milliseconds and returned to find her name emblazoned across her forehead, arms, and any place bare skin had been. The one across her lips was creative.

Her sister had been so concentrated on forming each letter of her name that she hadn’t noticed the rampage next to her.

It wouldn’t be the last time she had a run-in with ink.

A few months later, while her sister attended a roller skating birthday party, she and I sat off to the side watching. I had brought an assortment of things for her to do, including washable markers and coloring books. I had glanced up to check on her sister when I heard the sucking in of air, like a deep gasp.

I quickly turned back to find her holding both hands up in front of her face in total horror. Her color choice had been red, and it had gotten on her fingers.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, wondering why this was so traumatic. She could come into the house totally filthy and not care. Her mouth was wide open in a silent scream as she gathered in as much oxygen as her lungs would allow. Then the wailing started.

I had a difficult time making out what she was trying to say.

“I..I..I am….bl…eed…”

“What? I don’t understand.”

“I AM BLEEDING!” She used all of her strength to say it as panic shut her down.

It appeared that she had been playing with sharp knives.

I got out a wet wipe and quickly cleaned her hands. Within a split second, she looked down, smiled, and said,

“Oh.”

Things aren’t always as they appear. Like a funhouse mirror that distorts your image to make you look taller or shorter, sometimes our senses and how we think can play tricks on us.

Three years ago, I had my roof replaced after a storm. A sunny day suddenly turned dark as the skies broiled angrily with fast moving clouds.

I had received a message from a family member that they had gotten hit with strong winds, and he sent photos of chunks of hail. It was headed my way.

Our sirens were going off, indicating that we should go into the basement. However, it looked so calm outside that I went out to see how ominous it was. My daughter and I watched as large raindrops started to hit the driveway. We were standing in a corner that provided us the ability to not get wet between the house and the garage.

Slight sprinklings of pea-sized hail began.

“This isn’t good,” I said. “I think we should go in.”

As I said this, it was as if a switch was thrown, and ice baseballs began to come down everywhere. We were trapped because there was no way to come out for a split second without getting nailed with multiple of these.

We watched as puddles in the street looked like they were hit with small bombs nonstop. We huddled in the corner as the wind whipped branches and other debris flew in the air.

Once we quit screaming, we went back into the house unscathed. But, I knew that the house was not.

I immediately contacted my insurance representative, who sent over someone the next day to help. It was determined I had damage, and the process for repair on paper was begun.

First, I had to come up with a $2500 deductible, which I did not have.

“We can fix this right now,” he said.

“I don’t have the deductible at the moment.”

I knew if I had him do the work, I would be in debt. I was using everything I had to pay off a $10,000 debt that had been strangling me financially for over eight years. I had vowed to myself never to create more of it after taking lousy advice under pressure in the past and being too trusting.

This meant living in a limited, constricted way. I didn’t want to add to the stress.

“We do roofs until the first week of October. That way, we know we won’t have any snow. You are one of my first houses. We will book up quickly, so we really should do it right now.”

As he said this, one of my neighbors appeared.

“Do you replace roofs?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Can you look at mine?“

After inspecting it, it was determined she needed it fixed.

“How quickly can you do this? I’m putting it on the market next week.”

There were workers all over her property by the next day, and I had been given a referral discount off of mine.

I noticed another neighbor needed work done, so I wondered if they wanted a second opinion. They already had a sign in their yard from one of the many companies going door to door. I knew the competition was high.

After my inspection, a stranger came with a ladder and climbed up unsolicited. When I confronted him with the threat I could report him to the city; he realized he was at the wrong address and quickly left.

When my other neighbor signed up with the man I referred, this meant another discount for me.

I was still short $1500.

With work being completed on both sides of me, I was tempted to get it done and figure out the cost later. I kept hearing to wait it out.

By early fall, I received a higher property tax refund than anticipated.

“I think we should fix your gutters, too,” I was told in the interim. “I will do them at cost.”

Four months had gone by while I watched everyone else having work done. We had gorgeous weather, and I had paid it off in full by the time the job was completed. I had made up my mind not to allow more debt.

What had appeared impossible at the start took care of itself.

The only slight setback in the whole process was that the noise of the reconstruction had deeply disturbed one of my dogs. It was as if she anticipated the entire house crashing down even though there was no danger. She refused to sleep lying down, but as fatigue would hit her, she would fall over, wake up, and the process would start again. For days she did this until her body forced her back into a regular sleep pattern.

Her faulty senses and limited ability to understand had resulted in her being a nervous wreck.

Unlike her, we have access to insider information that can be easily tapped into if we allow it.

In Jeremiah 33:3 it says:

This is God’s Message, the God who made earth, made it livable and lasting, known everywhere as God: ‘Call to me, and I will answer you. I’ll tell you marvelous and wondrous things that you could never figure out on your own.’ (Message)

This leading generally doesn’t come in noisily but rather in subtle, quiet ways that only can be heard when there is no fear interference. Your reaction in the moment of adversity will determine how long you suffer.

Frustration, competition, and jealousy aren’t the ways out.

If you are willing to put aside what you think is true and seek out the One of all truth, the drama gets silenced. You won’t bleed to death because it’s just an illusion.

Guide

Posted on by Christine

“She’s going to scare me.”

My oldest daughter had come to me with a familiar concerned look that usually accompanied her when her sister was up to no good. 

“If you know she’s going to do this, doesn’t that make it less scary?”

If you see a car is coming, you don’t step out in front of it. You don’t talk to strangers. And you don’t run with scissors unless there’s an emergency, and then you keep the sharp end pointed toward the ground. 

“She’s planning this for the middle of the night when I’m sleeping!”

That threw in a new variable. 

I knew she was not above such tricks as I had seen the evidence. While my oldest daughter was sleeping off an illness, she had picked up a toy camera that had grainy video capability and shot footage of her. She had quietly filmed without disturbing her and even showed herself backing out of the room undetected. I found out about it later after the camera’s film had ended and it was reviewed. 

Her track record indicated she was capable of being a highly trained spy. 

“Did she tell you this?”

The master orchestrater usually never revealed her plan unless caught, and even then, it wasn’t always clear what she had devised entirely. 

“I found this on the floor in my bedroom!”

The two had shared a room for a while, one being four years old when the other was born. I had no idea until many years later when they would laugh and tell me how they would fake going to sleep at night and be in a full-blown tug of war sheet fight within minutes of my exit from the room.  

As they got older and the skirmishes increased, I knew they needed their own space—kind of like when I had to separate my two dogs from sleeping in the same kennel. 

She handed me a piece of paper. On it was the perfect drawing of my daughter’s bedroom. The details of furniture and room arrangement were exact. 

“Is this a map?” I asked, looking at the jagged edges ripped out of a notebook. 

“Yes! She’s going to hide and jump out and scare me!”

They both have fantastic drawing abilities that they did not inherit from me. She had taken her artistic flair and turned it into mental warfare.

“She didn’t just drop this on accident,” I said, catching on to what she was doing. 

“It was in the middle of the room. It wasn’t there when I left.”

“She did it on purpose to mess with your mind. Your room isn’t that big, so where will she possibly hide so you don’t know she is there?”

The thought of being vulnerable while asleep was the key to her distress. It wasn’t the actual act prompting fear but the anticipation of it. 

“She put a big x in the closet. She’s going to hide in there!”

“There is no way she’s going to do this to you. She wouldn’t tell you what would happen and where she would be ahead of time. She’s planting the idea so you stay up all night while she’s peacefully asleep.”

When I presented the paper to the six-year-old who should have been running a branch of our military, she smiled and admitted that she had put it right where she knew her sister would see it. It was all done just to get a reaction, and she had gotten what she wanted. 

Besides mind games, they were competitive. While I was distracted with a grocery list, they would be arguing over the shopping cart and who would get to sit on what side. Back then, they had plastic seats built onto the carts they sat in while I got a major workout pushing them and all the food up and down every aisle. 

Advertisers took advantage of this by putting their products on the back, just as a subliminal message to get you to buy whatever you spent the next hour or so looking at. 

“I want the Oreo side!” 

“I want it!”

The fight was on. It was Chips Ahoy versus Oreo, and it had been deemed that one was better than the other. I hadn’t recognized it the first few times, but once I did, I had to think quickly about how to solve it so there wouldn’t be a scene in public. It was a battle to convince one of them that both sides were the same. The only way was negotiation on my part.

“I will time it and give you the same minutes sitting there.” This technique calmed many storms that often blew in out of now where. That’s when you know you are winning. 

It never was fail-proof, though. Some conflicts that cropped up were beyond fixing.  

Board games were tense, with the two trying their best to outdo the other. There never was outright poor sportsmanship, but somewhat of a subtle feeling that would creep in when one was losing while the other was not.  

One game that both of them liked was Funky Fingernails. The genius who manufactured this is off on a yacht without care, living off royalties. 

The premise was to collect nine slide on nails of the same color and the prized golden nail. 

Cue the angelic music.

It was the most highly sought piece in the game, and there was only one, so that meant the winner had to secure it. But, just because someone had it didn’t mean it was theirs. A spinner was involved, giving your opponent the chance to swipe whatever they wanted from your hand to add to theirs.  

There is a universal truth I have seen in action with every kid on the planet. They don’t easily give up what they think is ‘theirs.’ 

She took MY chair! When there are a million to choose from, they sat in it for less than a minute, got up to get something, and now their sibling has slid in unknowingly because it was vacant.

He stole my favorite pencil! Same situation as the chair but a writing utensil. 

So to have a game that pits one against another is just asking for trouble. Watching an ego die can be ugly. 

Both would work frantically to gather matching colors to form the perfect fake manicure, which was another point of contention if they were trying for the same shade of pink.  

It was an emotional rollercoaster as one would gain an advantage, but then fate would reverse its course and give the other the upper hand.  

Both had gotten nine of their required nails during one of these hot-blooded matches. The youngest one had somehow managed to get the golden nail and only needed one more color, while her sister was eyeing the gold one that she needed to complete her hand. 

As luck would have it, my oldest spun, and it enabled her to take the golden nail from her sister, making her the winner. Before she could remove it, my youngest daughter started flicking and flinging plastic nails in all directions, stood up, and stormed into her bedroom. 

I sat there wondering what I should do. But before I could act, we both heard the mumblings of a person who had obviously snapped.

“I hate my room! I hate my socks! I hate my bed! I hate my pillow!”

The compulsion to compete had overtaken her ability to think straight. This rant of everything she found not to her liking poured out of her in a high-pitched yell.

I gasped when she said,

“I hate mom!”

I almost went in to silence her outburst, but I let it go to see where we would end up. At first, the two of us sat there shocked but restrained ourselves from laughing as it went on so she wouldn’t hear us. 

“I hate the dog! I hate everything! I hate the trees! I hate my window!”

I really struggled and had to put both of my hands over my mouth not to laugh out loud when she said,

“I HATE OUTSIDE!”

Then it went silent. As fast as it had begun, it was over. I waited to ensure that all of it was out in the open before I crawled over to her door and looked in. 

She was sound asleep on her bed. Later, I realized she had been running a fever, so her behavior was partly based on that and that she had been stuffing down her amped-up anxiety that grew with each turn taken.

We can pretend that our childhood gave way to such things, and we are so much further along and mature as adults. But are we?

Two things that don’t go well together are fear and paranoia. Going to the store meant seeing bare shelves as terror gripped the hearts of many. 2020 is a bit farther away now, but this was a daily existence during the pandemic’s beginning. 

I was checking out at an office supply store the other day, and the cashier said,

“Do you want some hand sanitizer?”

First, I wondered if he thought my hands were filthy. They weren’t. Then, I pondered what the sales pitch was going to be. 

“What?” 

“Do you want some hand sanitizer? We have way too much, and we have to get rid of it, so we have to give it away.”

He handed me two large bottles of it. This would have been like finding gold two years ago. The race to get it and horde it had been at an all-time high. Some guy had made national news because he had scooped up so much of it, was gouging people in price for it, and has charges against him. He is not anyone’s favorite person. Now, it is freely being gotten rid of as a burden. 

What was so feared yesterday isn’t so much today, and what was sought after as the must-have item is available everywhere and to excess. 

What does that say? Our emotions are fleeting, and that is where you have to decide if you will be led by your spirit or by your flawed thinking.  

In John 4:1 it states:

My dear friends, don’t believe everything you hear. Carefully weigh and examine what people tell you. (Message)

This verse was written concerning false prophets and preachers who claim they are genuine, but it could be applied to everything that comes our way. Mass hysteria is built on no one thinking clearly. It’s the insertion of an idea to get a reaction that creates a ripple effect. Instead of reacting to the news, especially what seems dire, take a minute to question it. 

Panic is like watching people do the wave at a sporting event. One section starts it, and it goes from row to row to see if it can make it back to its origin.

Eventually, it dies out because someone decides to quit, and then others make the same decision, much in the same way it got started, just like the highly sought-after hand sanitizer that now is collecting dust on the shelves.

We can learn from these things. 

In 2 Corinthians, 5:7 there’s an additional protective device given to those who wish to make themselves less likely to fall for false appearances, like the possible threat of your sister scaring you in the middle of the night:

For we walk by faith; not by sight. (ESV)

Run it past God; ask to be shown with your spiritual eyes what its reality is. Is this how heaven would deliver a sign or a message? Is it helpful and peaceful? Or is it meant to cause you to go into alarm mode? 

Let heaven be your guide.

(The source of many conflicts….)
(This needs to go right next to that Tickle Me Elmo you bought..and the Cabbage Patch dolls…)

Cross

Posted on by Christine

I sent her to her room for a minute to think. It wasn’t so much for her as it was for me. I had read countless parenting books about how to deal with the unruly. I had gotten it down to steps. First came the warning that someone would be booked on a one-way ticket to another part of the house away from me if things didn’t change.

If that was not heeded by some chance, which was unusual, separation from everyday living occurred. While this would seem like discipline to some, my youngest daughter took this as an opportunity to make the most of it. When many would be beating down the door like it was a prison cell, wanting to escape, she did the opposite.

She got out every available toy, knowing she would not have to share with her sister, and got lost in her imagination as she played alone.

I would have to tell her she could come back out, but she often wouldn’t because she was enjoying herself so much.

One time, she took what should have been isolation a bit too far. She had gotten into an altercation, tested my patience, and landed in solitary confinement. After the prescribed minutes of being in juvenile lockup, I told her that her time of self-reflection was over. The door stayed shut, and she made no move to free herself.

I had gotten to the point where I let her decide, but it was so quiet I decided to check on her. It was just past Easter, and I could tell she had merrily passed the time by living it up, eating her candy, and tossing wrappers all over the room. So much for only bread and water.

As I was taking that in, she ran past me, which I found strangely suspicious. It wasn’t until later when I heard her sister yell her name that she had been up to no good.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

I had given them each a small cross made of chocolate. My oldest daughter had a white one with bright colored flowers in the middle. Unlike her younger sister, she made things last. It wasn’t uncommon for the Fourth of July to roll in, and she still hadn’t finished all of what she had been given.

“She ate my cross!”

You don’t hear that every day. In horror, my oldest explained that she had purposefully not eaten the middle part, but her sister had no problem swallowing it down.

“I had saved where the pretty flowers were, and she ate it!”

She showed me the empty box it had been in.

How do you punish someone that you had already detained in punishment? This was not in any of my parenting books. There were no steps after this one. I found so many times along the way the conflicting emotions that would crop up as I was presented with this type of dilemma.

The first thing you try not to do is smile or laugh at how hilarious it is because of hurt feelings, and it’s so wrong. You mentally repeat that this is not funny, so you can commiserate with the victim whose last bite has been gulped down by a three-year-old who knew precisely what she was doing. You immediately go to the store to try and find something to make up for the loss while doing your best acting job frowning at the other one.

That’s where the forehead wrinkles come from.

Like my daughter, who adapted to wherever her behavior got her, some people can accept unpleasant situations better than others. They make the best of it, knowing that it won’t last forever. They don’t go on social media and rant for hours on end, tell every neighbor they see, and talk to every stranger at the grocery store.

Sometimes I’m surprised when I find out later that a person is plagued with a problem, and I would have no idea until someone told me. It’s not that they are faking their way through it. There’s this heavenly glow about them because they have made up their mind to accept the news, deal with it and still live as if nothing has changed. It’s not a secret, but it’s not been made the focal point of their existence. They don’t seem to be suffering in silence either. They have revealed their pain to a select few who offer steadfast support and give the rest to God.

They have tapped into a part of themselves where the peace that passes all understanding resides.

Since we have been taught that if you receive “bad” news or you have to deal with something that has been identified as unfavorable, this must require you to limp through life, making sure everyone knows how bad off you are.

I have been handed my fair share of circumstances that I would have instead bypassed. But in all those instances, I have learned more about God and a strength that I would have never known.

While embroiled in it, you aren’t always aware of the work that is being done inwardly, but it starts showing up in small ways. You begin to view things differently, as if God has placed a pair of glasses over your eyes and you have keen insider knowledge about situations before they occur.

You get to the point that whatever the trial is that you are involved in, you start to be thankful for it because, without it, you would never have transformed into a better version of yourself—one who can extend herself to those in their times of pain.

In James 1:2-4, it is stated:

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. 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. (Message)

I have to say, this can take a minute to get to this realization. It’s not necessarily an overnight adjustment.

I have been in many spiritual circles where people talk about wanting to be more “mature”. They express that they desire to come up higher and experience the more extraordinary things of God, but I don’t think they understand the sacrifice it takes to come to an elevated level. Usually, this means addressing something you have grown accustomed to blocking your progress. It has become so familiar it can feel like a vital organ or body part needed for survival when it really isn’t.

Take worry, for example. Or substances that disengage you from feeling. And comfort zones that numb your spiritual senses.

When all of those get stripped away because you realize they are only temporary fixes and confront what you don’t want to, you realize there’s a God you can trust. The heaviness of it all seems to lessen even though the trouble may still exist. You get a little wrapped up in this supernatural bubble where you don’t need to run from it anymore because it lost its power over who you are. You only look to God.

When you trade in your default mechanisms for coping, you are rewarded with spiritual tools that far surpass anything else you could ever devise. You are then able to bear your cross.

Bear your cross, don’t eat other people’s crosses…

Yucky Parts

Posted on by Christine

Sometimes it’s the smallest of things that make you realize how much God sees the details. Heaven seems to show up at just the right time to remind you that you have done alright, no matter what memories you might have surface to say otherwise.

She handed me a book that I forgot I even had.

“Where was this?” I asked.

“In my room.”

That happens quite often where we share without me realizing it. But, if it had not been in my possession for that long, then I guess I didn’t really miss it.

I recognized the cover and title from a while ago. I had gone through this phase where I could not absorb enough about people experiencing miracles. It can help you to believe when you read about the circumstances of others, prompting you to follow those leads that God is always putting in front of you.

To say you don’t have any isn’t the truth. You have to get quiet, and one way to do so is to read material about the very thing that you are seeking. While memorizing scripture is excellent, sometimes you need to subject yourself to multiple stories where people of various walks of life have all had incredible things happen to them.

The unusual happenings in the Bible, from the parting of the Red Sea to Jonah being swallowed by ocean life, sometimes don’t seem relevant unless I am stuck in traffic and I need an act of God to move cars along so that I can get back to my real life. The whale thing doesn’t really coincide unless I have to tell someone bad news, and I would rather not. I don’t live where there are whales readily available, though.

What does resonate is when a mortgage gets paid off unexpectedly, a child is healed of an incurable disease, or someone escapes a life that was leading to destruction. The themes are generally the same, with a person needing an unseen hand to intervene and come to the rescue seemingly out of nowhere.

I think it’s difficult to imagine God doing that because we always believe that it’s for everybody else. Our neighbor might fit the bill up the street, but we aren’t good enough to have it happen to us.

Isn’t that what blocks the miracle? Not God, but us.

“I was told to give you that book, and you need to look in the front cover.”

“Why? I haven’t seen this for so long.”

“Just look.”

When she tells me to do something, I do it.

Inside the cover was a note from her that I had used as a bookmark. She had written this to me during the height of a very tormenting and dark time in my life. My marriage had turned into divorce, and I had to figure out somehow how to keep it all on track.

I was constantly concerned that I wasn’t doing enough or being a good mother while working three jobs at once and homeschooling. I struggled to keep a stable environment for them while the world around me looked nothing like it had before.

While some of the existing problems were now absent, a host of other troubles seemed to be cropping up all the time.

One way I can describe it was like walking into one of those rooms where the whole structure is built at an angle. You have to navigate your way through using force to lean and move. You might have to hang on to a few walls to get through it, and right when you think you can let go of the support, you start to fall again. In the middle of it all, you come to a new understanding regarding the instability of life.

Believe it or not, it’s a gift. You realize that what is here today can be quickly gone tomorrow.

I would be rushing through the living room, trying to get to the next responsibility on my list, and she would tackle me with her eight-year-old self. She knew I was faking my way through it all, hiding my pain and trying to convince everyone that all was well.

In a death grip, she wouldn’t let me go and would repeatedly say,

“You are strong, mom. You are strong.”

I learned not to fight to get away because, one, it was pointless because she would suddenly have an iron hold on me that I could not release myself from. She would have both of her arms wrapped around my legs, making it impossible for me to move.

I know it sounds strange, but I had to stand still against my will when this happened. After a few times, I realized that God was speaking to me through her.

I felt the exact opposite of what she was saying. Totally weak and broken down, I was running on fumes, forcing myself out of bed every day, fearing that I would not be able to keep up with it all. And in the chaos of that, I had this shorter version of me stopping me in my tracks, giving me the advice I would give anyone else I saw in the same situation.

I had taught her without knowing it.

When I gave my life to God, I made it my mission to make sure both of my girls understood its importance. I didn’t want them walking the same trail that I had, not knowing who God really was. There were pitfalls along the way as we all learned, and still do, what spirituality really means. My goal was to have God be real to them, not some fictional guy in a book. And here it was on full display as she forced me to take a minute to listen.

“You are strong, mom. You are strong.”

One time, I said to her,

“Our house has been destroyed. Your dad is gone.” I thought that would make her quit doing this. It was inconvenient most of the time.

She looked me in the eye and said with much assertiveness and on the verge of anger,

“He is my real Father!” She pointed up. I couldn’t argue with that, and she made me stand there longer than usual. I learned not to be resistant to it anymore.

When I look at what she wrote back then, I can see now what she meant. Those sessions of making me stop what I was doing were times that God infused me with the strength I needed to go on. I just didn’t know it then like I do now.

She brought to life this verse from Psalm 46:10 that says:

Be still and know that I am God.

Sometimes when you look in the rearview mirror of your life, you see that all isn’t lost. It makes sense now.

In those places that seem impossible to endure, something is changing on the inside of you.

She and I went to a yoga class at a very early hour on a Saturday when the temperature was fourteen below. The drive was nearly forty minutes away, but the class was free, and there would be a litter of puppies.

“I want to go to this,” she said.

I did, and I didn’t. I know dogs and me, and I will want them all. I wasn’t so sure I could do all the moves either, but I was willing to try. Above all of that, I can never say no to her.

As we progressed through a flow of maneuvers that required balancing, many in the class around us were trying not to fall over.

“Relax your face as you move along,” the instructor said randomly with her back to us as she demonstrated, and we followed.

Immediately a woman in the back row said,

“I feel called out,” and started to laugh.

When it got quiet, and all of us were shaking uncontrollably, trying to stay upright while forcing our muscles to be more productive, the leader said,

“Breathe through the yucky parts. You are becoming a better person.”

If I have learned anything, you must know that God is holding your hand, everything will work out when you think it won’t, and now is the time to breathe through the yucky parts.

(I’m not crying..YOU are crying….)

Sucker

Posted on by Christine

I was recently shocked to discover that my long-held belief was based on absolutely nothing.

Long ago, in a land kind of in the exact neighborhood I live in now because I never really moved that far away from my original upbringing, I had a childhood that consisted of discipline, things I didn’t want to do but was told I had to, and candy.

We didn’t get a lot of it, but what I did manage to have come my way still reminds me of how I used it as a way to escape, like other drugs of choice. Sugar in a brightly colored concoction can do wonders to remove you mentally from a trying moment of your youth.

They say that the white granules are more addictive than cocaine in lab rats. That explains why I never understood the role of Willy Wonka and how odd he was. Unless you have taken mind-altering drugs or over-eaten pixie sticks, he didn’t make a lot of sense.

There’s a high competitive undertone in that entry into the highly sought after company which can only be had by finding the golden ticket strategically hidden in candy bars. This brings out the worst in people who try to obtain what they think will buy them happiness.

I understood the concept of the greedy children being taught a lesson. Still, there seemed to be no regard at all for their demise by being sucked up a tube, getting stuck in a television, or expanding into a gigantic blueberry.

As a child watching, it was somewhat disconcerting as he moved along the chocolate factory, not seeming to care that the kids following him were getting picked off one by one. This then cued the singing and dancing of orange colored men. It was almost as bad as the witch from the Wizard of Oz, who gave me nightmares for a long time. I have heard others were terrified of the flying monkeys. They weren’t even in charge.

The only redeeming quality of the entire story is that Charlie, a boy from poverty, who wants nothing, ends up gaining the whole operation where he and his family will live forever. It sends the message that those who are humble and don’t take advantage of others will win in the end.

But you wonder, did the other ones learn from their mistakes, or did they keep on taking despite their abrupt departure? Did they go back out into the world and continue to roll others over to get what they wanted?

It seemed as if the parents had instilled this bratty behavior in them to the point of no return. They placated and gave in to their every demand because it calmed down the conflict. It was easier to be passive than to say no, which would have brought on a temper tantrum. So to not upset the apple cart, they gave in and weakly surrendered their authority.

I have seen this in action where a child insists on their way and is given what they demand, even though it’s not the right decision. This fosters in the next situation over another item, and a pattern becomes established.

It becomes difficult to recall where it all began in the long run. It just appears that a person is a taker. They were created by people who should have corrected it but didn’t want to cause a stir. They chose the path of least resistance to be nice.

I have seen the trials of parents trying to negotiate with their kids in public. It’s the usual screaming and sometimes throwing themselves on the floor over something they cannot have. It can go two ways, but I always cringe when the parent says no a million times and then hands over the very thing that is the source of contention.

It’s not only that the child won the war but also that the parent does not stick to what was said. The idea of wearing someone down until they get their way has been established, which becomes part of a person’s character. Unknown to many, this limits them spiritually.

What are the consequences of such behavior? It’s spoken of in John 2:16–17:

Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity. (Message)

It makes it tough to follow God’s voice and be led when you always get your way.

You are not challenged on any level to die to yourself when you are not in a situation to lean totally on God as your source. Believe it or not, having everything taken away and hearing the word “no” isn’t always a bad thing. I have learned through my tough life stages that there is a realm higher than this one, but it can only be accessed by total submission.

This doesn’t mean God wants to punish you, but things will move in a way to get your attention. Living from an eternal perspective sometimes comes in a way that isn’t always to our liking, but there is always a reason for it.

What might feel like suffering today will open doors for greater understanding tomorrow.

When we are in a comfort zone or pattern of familiarity, these forces keep us from growing into our life purpose and higher state of existence. When you get stuck and preoccupied with minor issues, you cannot expect to be given more important things.

God never gives up, though, because there is work to be done on his behalf. So heaven is always trying to wake us up to a deeper understanding of things if we will listen.

My daughter brought home cherry Tootsie Roll pops. I usually try to eat healthily and not let myself have that type of thing. If I really am struggling with saying absolutely no, I find somewhere on my body a slight bit of extra and tell myself it will only make more. And I wear the tightest pair of jeans in my closet. Anything that stretches gives the illusion all is well when it might not be.

As I looked at the bag, I mentally went through a reasoning process. I had been good all week, worked out every single day not only with resistance training but also getting in my 10,000 steps. When I realized I had cleaned the house, I took one.

I instantly looked at the wrapper and said,

“I wonder if this has a kid dressed like an Indian shooting a star?”

My daughter said,

“What do you mean?”

“When I used to eat these, we were told to always look for that on the wrapper.”

Sure, enough, it was there. But, the star was a heart because it was Valentine-themed.

Her inquiry made me think.

“Why have I been doing this all these years? What’s the point of looking for this certain boy doing archery?”

I had never questioned this. It was something I just did on autopilot. Someone had told me it was necessary, and I had gone along with it. I recall the disappointment of not seeing it, but what for? Not finding this made me feel like a total loser when I was little.

I searched online to find out what I was missing. Apparently, this was a big fat rumor that had gotten started and spread like wildfire. Someone claimed that if you were lucky to have found this on your wrapper, you could mail it in to the company for a free one.

All of it was a lie. The company debunked this myth, but I read that one man who owned a grocery store took pity on those who believed it and honored it by handing out free pops.

News like that makes one reflect on what else has been pawned off as fact but isn’t? It’s so unreal that a person can get this far along in life and keep on doing something mindlessly based on faulty thinking. How gullible can we be?

How many licks does it take to get to the center of the truth? Way more than three, I can tell you.

As long as you stay flexible in your thinking and ask God to show you the path, I believe that you will be guided as much as you will allow. If you give up your will, you will be shown the way.

In Ephesians 6:14 it says,

So stand firm and hold your ground, having tightened the wide band of truth (personal integrity, moral courage) around your waist and having put on the breastplate of righteousness(an upright heart)(Amplified)

There will be individuals who will look to use your kindness for their selfish ways. But, God always brings balance where you won’t feel guilty if you decline to help, and you won’t be a part of promoting greed. Instead, you will be sent to be of help where your assistance isn’t creating more taking.

God loves a joyful giver, but you don’t have to fall prey to being a sucker.

It means nothing…