repair

Plain

Posted on by Christine

We should have gone to bed, but for some reason, we were awake watching a home shopping channel. I find it fascinating how salespeople rope you in with their description of color. Tomato garden, stargazer blue, dandelion fields, and watermelon rind can be yours in a convenient pack of plastic containers with lids that get lost in a sea of mismatched covers. You will ask yourself later,

“Where did I put the peach margarita? I thought I saw it in here yesterday.” You shuffle pieces and parts around, looking for the orange one, but settle on another after profuse sweating.

Exaggeration while presenting products to generate want and need is the key to a healthy flow of income. Announcing what we already know isn’t enticing. We have to throw a new name on it, usually with something that appeals to the senses, like a tropical island or a favorite food.

What would you rather buy: a plain red pair of underwear or a super slim bikini-ready panty?

Even though we all know it’s a tourist trap in your living room, we cannot find the strength to turn off the tv and leave. We must listen to the exasperated voices, the fantastic way a zipper functions, and the marvelous fringe hanging from a throwback jacket from the 70s.

We were subjected to a woman explaining her blue jean collection. She had them neatly on a rack so the camera could zoom in while she pulled them to the side to show off her handiwork done at a factory by machines. Yet, she took all the credit.

“We wanted to create a line, especially for the older female wanting to feel empowered and the fullness of their feminity.” This was the gateway to more. It started with the soft sell to work on emotions, and when the phones weren’t lighting up, they had to move it up a notch.

“How great,” the host said, in her whispery voice, sounding like this was the first pair of pants she had ever seen.

Then, the material had to be petted like a small animal with the softest fur.

“Now, ladies, can’t you see yourself on a night out rocking these jeans like a teenager all over again?”

I started to fade long before the word ‘rocking’ showed up. I can be visual, so when that word was used, I saw an older woman sitting in a chair, wearing sweatpants and knitting a shawl. When did a musical term become something someone does with clothing?

I was the demographic for this display, as they were advertised for the more mature. They saved the best part for last.

“These are embellished, ladies.”

“What?” said the presenter next to her, acting as if her last shot of whiskey had just kicked in.

For more minutes than humanly possible, they went on a tirade about how there had been a lot of care taken to put special steel inserts up and down the legs. These weren’t your typical choices with rivets adorning them.

That’s when the language took a turn.

“You will feel so sexy in these you won’t ever want to take them off to wash them!”

This caused me to recline back to the fullest extent in my chair and slap my hands over my eyes. The charade was in full swing. They were preying upon the late-night snackers who had insomnia. By the time they received their order, they would have to go up two sizes.

Even then, we kept looking on, waiting to see if there were any more surprises, like a trap door in the back of them. My daughter, unable to take another second of the lies, said,

“The only thing that is embellished is this lady’s speech!”

She wasn’t buying it, probably because she isn’t past thirty. Skinny jeans are normal to her, but to me, they conjure up not eating for at least a week. In my youth, skinny meant no extra fat anywhere, not even on your thumbs. So, for her to take issue with this, it wasn’t just me who saw the facade.

I became curious the other day and searched for the meaning of embellish. It’s a double-edged sword.

Here is the positive side: make (something) more attractive with the addition of decorative details or features.

That seemed to be what the sales professionals aimed for with their post-midnight attention grab.

Here’s the darker side: make (a statement or story) more interesting or entertaining by adding extra details, especially ones that are not true.

There is just the slightest difference between good and evil. My daughter was correct. Would wearing them bring in the height of satisfaction viewers were chasing after? I bet not.

I wanted to know what was said about the opposite of this word. Here is what I found: Disfigure. To spoil the appearance of.

While the items were meant to be a fashion statement that would increase self-esteem, this would not be a long term effect. Anything on the outside, and not from the spirit, is short lived. That’s why the clever, hypnotic subconscious tricks were stated so customers would be reeled in.

I saw how the positive and the negative were not opposites at all. Let’s say someone who dislikes themselves buys these, believing this is the answer to all of their self-hatred. They run for the credit card, place the order, and anticipate feeling better when they slip into them. After a while, the false high fades along with the jeans.

The original intent was to make a purchase to cover up feelings of inferiority, but it will only be healed if the root of the problem is dealt with. Instead of making one discover wholeness, it tears down and disfigures. Something that was to bring a beautiful gain ends up causing pain. The mirror shows the same body, housing the same mindset that holds the worn out thoughts that you are ugly and not of any value. When one looks at themselves, they see distortion, another form of disfigurement.

Isn’t it horrifying to think that when you dress something up to make it more pretty, it can backfire?

For years, I practiced the art of embellishment, and not with clothing items. I did it with my life, covering up the abuse I endured in my marriage. I didn’t tell anyone about the physical, psychological, or emotional turmoil I was living in.

I put on a smile and pretended that all was well. My family and friends may have seen through it; I am not sure, but I was a great actress, taught at a young age how to minimize circumstances and distort reality. I lied so often that I believed my twisting of the truth.

This was not done with malice but to protect my girls and me from more perceived harm. The damage of what I did was extraordinarily serious, causing my spiritual growth to stop as I was so caught up in trying to control the situation with the only tools I had been given in my childhood, modeled by my mom.

If I hurt myself and would go to her, she made me believe it wasn’t that bad. Our house had an unwritten rule that we had to tough it out no matter what, and anything to her dislike was made into something else. I recall having a vivid dream that I broke my leg, and when I showed her, she said,

“Oh, you just cut yourself. That’s not bad at all.”

Dreams tell us what we shove down to avoid. I woke up knowing that I had fractured a bone, but her dismissive attitude was trying to convince me otherwise. This is how I was conditioned to take adverse circumstances and make them disappear.

For years, I felt I could not tell anyone what was happening. I put up blocks, propped us up, and made excuses. I was good at it because it was about self-preservation, but I was stifling the growth in my house, keeping us trapped. I demonstrated to my daughters a worse version of what my mother had done to me.

I see it similar to when a person is building a snowman. You start with a small ball of snow and keep rolling it until you can no longer push it further. Something that once fit into the palm of your hand is now more massive than you, and you cannot move the weight of it anymore.

You start in control, but it gets increasingly out of your control.

It wasn’t until a divorce that I could have stepped into another place that would have set me free from this insidious darkness that had a choke hold on me. But, in the chaos and fear, I defaulted toward what was familiar.

I read a book not long ago that contained research on the brain. When a person deceives long enough, chemicals are released that change the makeup of the organ, causing it to be more challenging to undo the falsehoods. If this person takes a lie detector test, it often comes back as truth because they believe what they are saying, and the body supports it.

When you live in denial since childhood, you aren’t aware of what you are doing. You make decisions without thinking, and it has only been by revelation that I see the damage it has caused me. Living an existence parallel to an authentic life is not what God wants. The word that comes to mind is pretending.

Like characters in a play, we put on our disguises and act our part. Someone else is writing the script, and we are not in a place of authority as we were designed to be. And when you live in such a way, your external world reflects what you give it. Your relationships are fake, people will lie just as much as you are, and you become a shadow of yourself.

This is where you work with God to find your freedom. No matter how frightening it is, you decide to leave the past behind and become who you were put on earth to be, no matter how uncomfortable it gets. The voices of despair and panic scream through your mind that you will not make it, but you fight past it, wanting to create a new life you were always meant to have.

You become honest, and this is where you find yourself, the one that went missing as a child. You understand you can demand that the people around you respect you, disengage from toxic people, and build genuine deep, loving relationships. Anyone who mistreated you in the past is no longer in a close inner circle. You handle it like a drug addict who sets himself free and finds new people to associate with, even if it means moving from one location to another to fully get away from your past.

No one would have said I was a bad person. I went out of my way to be a people pleaser, putting myself last on the list because I disregarded myself and my true feelings. It was a vicious cycle of pretending to be okay when I was hemorrhaging everywhere spiritually.

In Psalm 147:3 it says,
He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds. (NLT)

God longs for us to come out of our prisons and live in abundant peace. We can concoct our plans, but His ways are higher and better. Simplicity is what heaven offers. It doesn’t involve ducking and dodging out of the way of harm or making up one story after another to cover up the last one.

And those embellished jeans? They will always be for sale, hoping some unsuspecting buyer will come along and succumb to the slick sales pitch. The emotional manipulation draws in the weak, but the enlightened woman turns her back on what doesn’t honor her value.

Instead, you can cast all that away and put on God’s garment of truth, only seeking the attention of heaven, keeping your dignity intact, and being okay with wearing what some might consider plain.

They are what they are

Reset

Posted on by Christine

“No,” I said. “You have already been outside.”

When you have dogs and kids, it’s easy to fall into rituals to maintain order in the house. Both species thrive on a schedule, otherwise, a lack of security starts to set in. The snack bin gets raided repeatedly, the fridge pursued multiple times, the aimless wandering begins, and naps happen at weird hours.

Meals and bedtimes are the two most significant parameters around a day.

With my dogs, I set their schedule right away, feeding them at the same time and letting them out. Like a fine oiled machine, they worked with me and usually conformed. Sometimes though, they would stray from the plan. Their internal clock would go off, and suddenly at an off hour, they would beg to go out.

The routine at night was to let them out at ten, followed by a teeth treat. Both had dental challenges and hated to be confined while I tried to get them to open their mouths. If dealing with a resistant child and medication is difficult, a dog and a toothbrush are arch enemies.

The hounding to go out early indicated they were hustling me for a treat. Sometimes I gave in, and other nights I made them wait it out.

This time they had already been out, had a snack and were now racing toward the door like I had amnesia. Do you know how your kids will tag team you into believing you are not right when you know you are? They both tell you one thing, but you know the truth. Dogs can manipulate this way too. It was time to go to bed.

They went to the door to go out, trying to swindle another round of handouts.

After watching me struggle with them for a few minutes, my daughter said,

“I need to reset them.”

“Huh?”

“I need to convince them they have had what they normally get.”

She went to the kitchen cupboard where we kept their nighttime chew sticks. They watched her open and close the door, but she gave them a baby carrot from the refrigerator.

After that, it was like a switch was thrown to recalibrate their brains.

When I said,

“Time for bed,” they ran side by side to my bedroom.

She used the term “reset” because most electronic devices have them hidden somewhere. I discovered with my Fitbit I used to own that if it was malfunctioning, I had to take a paper clip, bend it into a straight line and press the tip into a microscopic hole. Like magic, it would bring everything back into working order.

We take the ease of today’s technology for granted, and many of us have not experienced any of the former ways of doing tasks. Calculators didn’t exist, so a pencil and paper had to be on hand. Inventions like “touchless” faucets or soap dispensers didn’t exist. You had to put your hands all over everything. Stairs you walked on, not people movers or escalators, got you from point A to B.

One time, I went into a bowling alley with my dad. As we were watching someone throw a ball down a lane, he said,

“I hurt a guy really bad once at a place like this.”

If we had been attending a boxing match, I would have understood. But this was bowling. There were people in their late 80s wearing ugly shoes and matching shirts, barely able to use their back muscles when letting go of the ball. It was a far cry from a drag down brawl. It ranked it up there with croquet, backgammon, or chess.

“How did you do that?”

I knew when he was young he was in a street gang, so I assumed he had a run-in with a rival.

“Watch after someone knocks down the pins. Do you see how the machine drops down to pick up what they didn’t hit and sweeps away the ones they got? Then it puts the rest of them back for their second try?”

“Yes,” I said. “Isn’t that the reset?”

I had no clue where he was going with this.

“Before they invented that automated system, they had guys standing back there waiting to do that job for the bowlers. They had to jump in, take out pins and return the ones still in play.”

I watched more closely, and this seemed an impossible task for a human to do.

“I had turned my back to retrieve the ball, and I wasn’t paying attention to the person crouching down to put everything back in place. I quickly stepped up to the line, whipped my ball down there, and it knocked him in the head. He ended up flat on his back with a goose egg on his head.”

“Was he knocked out?”

“No. He was stunned and could barely move. I gave him some money because I felt so bad.”

I could relate to his feelings because I had hit a ball while playing softball that struck the pitcher. She was taken off the field by ambulance, and I had to go on and play.

I imagine both individuals were a bit more head shy the next time they resumed their positions. It only takes one bad incident to cause trauma in the body and mind for years.

Feeling anxious would happen every spring when I would get behind home plate as a catcher. My coach expected me to stretch forward to place my glove as close as possible to the edge of the strike zone, making it difficult for the batter. This was strategic and a great idea unless you were the one with the top of your head inches from the bat.

By the fall, when the season ended, I wouldn’t flinch once, but at the start of March, every muscle in my body would jump as I tried to control my emotions. The crack of the aluminum impacting the ball was unnerving, but I forced myself to stay there to get used to it. Moving away would have made it that much more difficult the next time. With repetition, my body learned to relax when I didn’t sustain a concussion.

It was mind over matter and can be applied to anything that has brought pain or the potential to cause more.

You can go through life believing that being clubbed might happen, so you avoid what will make you cower. Or, you face it, and whatever isn’t real, you identify as fake.

I was in a dangerous place, but it never resulted in injury. I learned to return, deal with the uncomfortable feelings and play on. Every year I had to reacquaint myself, but after a few times, the fear would disappear, and my focus would change to what would happen next.

More than once, I was hurt by a runner. I was knocked down, trampled on, punched, and felt the agony of cleats digging into my exposed arms while on the ground. I had to throw myself into defending the plate, even if that meant sustaining damage. To play meant I had to take the chance of being hurt.

My interest was not to ride the bench. Ever. To sit and watch runners come home on plays I knew I would have tagged them on was worse than the possibility of getting wounded.

That’s the dilemma of life. You can hide away, running from more harm that might never happen, or you can take another chance and put it into God’s hands.

Reviewing past offenses that resulted in trauma, I see where I contributed to the situation. I am not condemning abuse victims but making sense of how it has occurred. I’m not coming at this in an angry, bitter stance. But to see where the missteps might have been on my part for letting it continue. The true test is to overcome the thought you will keep the destructive pattern going.

It helps to ignore the idea that you have wasted your time that you cannot get back.

But, once you get good at blocking off the fear of repeating the same mistakes, all you can do is ask God for a redo.

As an act of heaven’s great love, the stopwatch gets reset.

My patience for doing 1 plank.

Deodorant

Posted on by Christine

When my daughters were young, I trusted them to clean their room. I never set aside a certain time of day or demanded they clear the clutter at the expense of missing an activity. I knew some mothers who put their kids in lockdown if they were not keeping their spaces neat. Being ‘grounded’ seemed like punishment for me, so I subjected no one to it. After all, the area I lived in as a child and a teen often required I blaze a trail to get to my bed at night. 

This could go on for months, and then, a spirit of irritation would hit, and I couldn’t stand to look at the clutter. When I had time off from school or work when my brain wasn’t preoccupied with study or an unforgiving schedule, I would suddenly have to toss everything. Otherwise, I could flop down in the middle of it and not see it.  

Once in a while, my mom would open the door, gasp, and with wide eyes say,

“Chris, you need to clean your room.”

“Why?” I would look at her over a pile of clothes I had worn for about two seconds spread out over weeks. They weren’t filthy dirty, and it was at least ten steps to the washing machine from my bedroom. Why waste my energy on that?

“It’s a mess in here.”

“It is?”  

No matter how much I had to kick objects out of my way or go around obstacles, as long as I could leap into my bed, it was easy to ignore. It would improve my skill when I had to clear the high jump in gym. The one thing I never dared do was to eat in my room. I knew better than that, or her wrath would be immediate. She knew where every utensil was in each drawer. 

She never demanded that I buckle down and do anything about it. There was the suggestion with a sigh that it was awful and I might want to take some action.

I used the same philosophy with my two. When it got bad enough, they would eventually take care of it. It was strikingly obvious when we would be on vacation, and the two of them would share a room. My oldest daughter would make her bed, put her clothes in the dresser, and make herself a beautiful home like Martha Stewart. The other got out of bed and never looked back until we checked out at the end of the week. 

Based on this, it was easy to discern who was not pulling her share of straightening up and needed a little assistance. Occasionally, I would enter the room and check the environment for overlooked hazards. Like when a child stockpiles collectibles in their pockets or a shakedown in a prison cell, it was anyone’s guess what would show up.  

During one of these routine inspections, I opened the door and heard sloshing. A souvenir water bottle was hung on the doorknob and swung back and forth.

A memory surfaced of her sucking up a high sugar, sticky liquid on a hot summer day. I mentally calculated when we had been to that amusement park. It was at least a year, so it wasn’t looking good for me to twist off the cap. I took my chances because I couldn’t leave it there until we relocated. 

The smell was horrifying. Seeing the fuzzy black mold growth raised more than one gag. If it were a homeschool science project, she would have been awarded an A. I learned what time, darkness, and saliva do together when unattended. I am sure there is an unknown algebraic equation that would fit this situation. 

I had to precariously transport it from one end of the house to the other where I could dispose of it in the kitchen. That was the longest walk, trying not to trip and spill any of it on me or the carpet. I imagined one drop being like the sulphuric acid I had to handle in chemistry class in high school. We had gloved up, but I had not yet secured my safety goggles. 

The teacher had just said,

“Don’t let any of this touch your skin. You will suffer burns.” 

Moments later, my lab partner accidentally splashed it in my eyes. My entire face went under the faucet, and everything was okay except for her nerves.    

My daughter saw me, and as I rushed without rushing, I asked,

“Why was this in your room?”

“I hung it there when we got home. I forgot about it.”

I dumped the contents and the memento that had cost triple its production. 

Why do we easily remember some things but suddenly forget others? Usually, if it’s an unpleasant task, we can let it vanish without care. You would think something like personal hygiene generally holds a high priority in memory. 

This is not always the case. 

I was on my way to a family member’s house, trying to concentrate on the food I was to bring. I had made multiple trips from the kitchen to the car, securing a hot crockpot and other containers. Positioning is a priority in case of a sharp turn, and your goal is to not see the contents all over the back seat. 

Nothing is worse than getting to your destination and realizing that you left an item behind, and then you have to drive all the way back to retrieve it. My mind was on nothing but loading the car and arriving on time. 

The three of us got in and buckled up. It started with my oldest daughter seated in the back.

“I forgot to put deodorant on!”

My first thought was,

Oh, no. I have to turn the car off because my house key is on the ring and there is no other way to get in.  

I felt shuffling and heard a slight sniff in the passenger seat beside my right arm. The announcement had triggered her sister to double check herself. 

“I forgot to put mine on, too!”  

My armpits suddenly felt sweaty. No way. I had to admit it. 

“I forgot to put mine on too.” 

Now it was worth turning off the car, so we could run into the house to quickly swipe some on.  

I have always appreciated those moments when suddenly, a quiet voice in my mind reminds me of something I am about to forget at the door when I leave. Or, at the store, just before I check out, while in line, and have to run up and down aisles trying to get back before the cashier is to the final item on the belt. 

The help is always there, but I can get distracted and forget. I fall easily into striving, trying to do it all myself, and disregard the inside communication that could save time. 

All the experts say to make a list before shopping and go after a meal. I generally adhere to both pieces of advice by eating beforehand and writing down what I need. I either forget my list on the kitchen table or lose it, especially if I have to go to more than one store.  

I have been reminded lately to start my day in prayer. Not scrolling through my phone looking at what draws the world’s attention, but making a connection right away when I wake up. Calling in the direction of heaven seems to improve my day. Some would say this is a psychological phenomenon, but what if it isn’t? What if God wants that, and until we do it, there will be a struggle when one isn’t necessary?

If someone told me to bet on a horse they knew would win because it had won before, the odds would be in my favor, and placing my money on it would bring me a reward. What if it worked? If that is the outcome, lying down a couple of dollars would result in a small win. The risk would be worth it.  

It’s the same with asking for help right from your bed before the day begins. What can it hurt?  

In Psalm 143:8 it says,

“Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.” (ESV)

Before your phone buzzes or you have to make a life-changing decision, God will speak to you so when the moment arrives, you may already have an answer.  

Just as powerful as remembering, so is forgetting. In the movie Inside Out, sadness and joy realize they cannot exist without each other. How can someone suddenly laugh in the middle of sobbing their eyes out? Because one overrides the other.

While it is a great thing for us to recall certain events, it is also a gift to forget circumstances that hurt us to the core of who we are. The chalkboard of the mind can be erased as if the pain never existed. That’s another fantastic tool that God employs to help us move forward.  

Isaiah 43:18 says,

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.”

I have a lot of places in my life where I have been physically, mentally, and spiritually hurt, and several years went by where I stuffed down my feelings. Without realizing it, there was darkness residing inside that I was unaware of, but it was running my thinking and influencing what was manifesting itself around me. Before waking up to the truth, I couldn’t comprehend why a loving God would allow so many distressing patterns that kept repeating themselves.  

I had to bravely take the cap off the container I had housed for years, hanging on the door of my heart, collecting sludge. 

With God’s help, I became an observer, able to stand outside the emotions, separate myself and be free. I didn’t have to force myself not to think of the past; I finally looked at it for what it was, saw the errors made, and let it go. 

As explained in the verse, I can now bury the past and look at it no more. It has lost its energetic hold on me so I can walk free of it. Dropping unnecessary, dense energy creates space for new, better experiences.

One of the most helpful things I have done is to imagine making peace with the people who caused me to suffer harm, and I see how in some places, not all, I allowed it. Through supernatural help, I can visualize myself being in the presence of some of my worst enemies, forgiving them, and creating peace. 

You don’t want to walk through your life dragging the heavy weight of burdens along because they will rob you of your peace and joy. The negative emotions will repel your good. 

Just like showing up at a social gathering without your deodorant.  

Never let them see you sweat.

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.

Seeing Red

Posted on by Christine

The color red has been my favorite for a long time. I’m drawn to it like a moth is to a flame. When asked to select a color in kindergarten, I always chose this shade. Most of the time, this boy always wanted whatever I had. And when we were expected to trade, I looked for someone who had it so I could keep it.

This was well before speed dating and swiping past profiles. And Tinder.

I would always look for someone else to exchange with, and he would follow me. Not quietly but relentlessly, making it apparent that he wanted my attention more than my Crayola. The day that the teacher saw me ignoring him and made me publicly make the trade was the last day I avoided him.

I felt like she spotlighted me, and everyone was looking at us. I quickly handed over what he wanted and tried to pretend he wasn’t there.

But whenever we switched to another color, he was right there, waiting for me to give mine to him.

It killed me to use blue, green, or whatever choice he took without thinking. There was no alliance between him and what he randomly grabbed from the box.

Mine was my Ruby birth color, and I knew it was significant even at age five. It was the last stone on my mom’s Mother’s ring that housed five others. I found out later they had to break the ring and make room for mine on the end.

Of course, they did.

Anytime I pick a game piece or am required to create a character if I can get red or an equivalent of it, I try to. When with people who also seem to have this affinity and take it before I can claim it, a part of me dies inside. It’s the kid from kindergarten rearing his ugly head. But, I never say. I go with yellow or some other meaningless option.

I have found you can be defeated whether you play with your favorite color or not. The only consolation is that you at least had that in your possession at the start space.

It’s not surprising to me now that I have a neighbor named Red who drives a red truck.

I have lived in my house for thirty-one years, and my front window faces a busy street where I have seen kids catch busses for school and the same ones graduate and go to college. You don’t realize who is around you until they aren’t anymore.

A few months ago, my daughter and I noticed that this man and his wife were no longer buzzing by every morning at 9 am. Even when I wasn’t working from home, I would see them go by. Stop sign and a left turn.

Suddenly, it wasn’t happening anymore.

“I think you are supposed to help him with hospice for his wife,” she said one day, as she does, and it goes through me like electricity.

That would have been great, but I didn’t know him. I had waved and acknowledged his existence all the years I have lived in my house. I watched a while ago as she started to show signs of having a stroke.

One arm hung down at her side, and he did all the yard work alone. But, every day, they drove past my house.

“I bet they go get coffee,” I said to my daughter. We would often try to guess where they were off to.

So when she said I was to help him, I started paying more attention. The lights were on, but no one was home. He was coming home later at night and started going on walks with a large wooden staff like Moses.

“You have to help them,” she said. As I looked out the window, I watched him in a very slow and sad saunter up the street.

Then I flashed back mentally to 2020—the political yard signs. I saw them and gave them little thought. I had decided to disassociate myself from it. Does it exist in heaven? Then I don’t want anything to do with it.

I know I always get the speech that if I don’t vote, bad, bad things will happen. The horror of horrors! You don’t vote? Your one vote is needed. You are why, Chris, this country is going to the dogs.

To each, their own, and mine is to stay out of the fray.

I listened to comments from those supporting the “opposing” side when they noticed the signs proudly displayed.

“They support them? They are so brainwashed and delusional!”

And I have heard the other side say the same thing.

One day recently, I saw him outside. I ran out the front door and across the street before he could disappear.

I introduced myself, and he said his name was Red. My daughter and I were right in our assessment of him being alone. I found out that his wife is in a care facility near his home. I offered to help him in any way I could, including taking things for donation as he was getting ready to sell the house in the future.

I told him I volunteered for hospice and to let me know if it ever came to that.

He came to my door the other night wanting the hospice’s name. It’s now been determined this is where the situation is.

I gave him the information, and I saw his sadness. There’s no running away from it, and he’s in the most challenging part of the walk.

My daughter’s words were true when I had no idea what was happening.

He came back to get my full name, but I wasn’t home. I caught him the next day in his yard. He was removing plants so the siding could be redone.

I followed him into his house so I could write my name on a sheet of paper. On the way in, I saw it.

In the garage, at least 20 bright red with white lettering I Voted stickers were hanging on a cabinet showing his former treks to the voting booth.

I scribbled my name on a sheet of paper and looked at the surroundings of very feminine collectibles. Even though she was absent, her presence was everywhere I looked.

He told me he and his daughter would start going through belongings to give away.

He pointed to many of the items surrounding us and said,

“She could tell you where she got each one.”

As was the case with me, going through a divorce, I had to get rid of material things. But, I always found someone who needed it.

“When you give these things away, you will feel the gratitude of those who need what you give them. The people who get these things will treat them like she did.”

I said goodbye, and he went back to his work.

Had I let politics come between us, I would not have been able to extend myself to him this way. While many sit in front of their TVs or read the latest headline on their phone regarding where we are as a society and how far we think we have come, I find we haven’t advanced all that much.

Many old ways of doing things, like taking care of your neighbor, have fallen to the wayside because of a piece of paper where you make choices about who will run for an office we are so removed from. Yet, people near us, next to us, need our help.

While the world screams one way, God whispers another. And God’s way won’t leave you seeing red.

Water Into Wine

Posted on by Christine

Please see the post Whiny as this is a continuation of that one.

Sometimes you don’t understand the reason for the adversity, or maybe you see the lesson in it, but God expands it further.

The following morning, after being made to feel unwelcome at the pickle court, we drove back, hoping the group that had only been there on Tuesdays hadn’t returned.

As I pulled around the familiar corner, we saw their cars lined up, so we knew it wasn’t worth the effort to try. I wasn’t going to try to negotiate anything.

Some would say,

“Witness to them! Share God’s love with them! Maybe God wants you to play doubles!”

Another voice says, maybe that lady is right. Maybe you are disrespectful.

When met with so much greed and negativity, it’s easier just to make yourself out to be the bad guy. You start to question if you did the right thing or not.

My daughter’s comment that “humanity is sad” led her also to say,

“I’m not going to live my life on their schedule.”

How could we possibly try to figure out what time to show up? Even if I got there at 3 am, they were so possessive and controlling that I swear they would start to appear from the woods like the zombies from Night of the Living Dead.

Instead of my body, they would want my pickleball space.

“Maybe we are supposed to be doing something else,” she said as we watched them happily play with all the people they associated with. There was no room in their agenda to let us in, and I felt I didn’t want to be “in.”

Just as I had sensed the other day, it was their way or the highway, which was why I felt such a clash. I didn’t match up to the attitude, the spirit, or frequency they operated on.

A lot of us try to “fit in.” We conform and scrunch ourselves down to meet others at their level while becoming a shell of ourselves. When you do that, you miss another opportunity God has for you. From toxic people and dead-end jobs, whatever fills up a place that doesn’t bring you life, it’s taking up the spot of something or someone who could.

“I’m going back to where we started,” I told her as I left.

I felt this strong pull to abandon a situation in which I would never make a dent. It would be me beating my head against a wall. I tried and got absolutely nowhere the day before. Sometimes it’s dark, and God isn’t asking you to be the light at that moment.

Jesus said in Matthew 10:14:

When you knock on a door, be courteous in your greeting. If they welcome you, be gentle in your conversation. If they don’t welcome you, quietly withdraw. Don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way. (Message)

So I shrugged.

The familiar streets and the houses I used to walk by on my way to elementary school brought a sense of peace. The park I used to ride my bike to all summer long, where I played softball, was quiet.

This is where she and I tried to play weeks ago when we had no idea what we were doing. The asphalt is nothing special compared to what we had just had the luxury of using, but I knew I was in the right place.

The city marked tan lines over the white ones used for tennis. It’s not pretty and brightly multicolored. It’s cracked with weeds starting to run all over it.

“I will deal with weeds and cracks at this point just to have the enjoyment of playing.”

A retired couple was doing yard work, and I immediately saw the mourning dove perched on the high wire singing. Those are always a reminder to me that my grandma is close by. Her North Dakota yard was filled with them, and their sad song troubled me when I was little.

“I don’t like those woo birds,” I told her. Every time I heard one, I felt this lonesome feeling that I had difficulty explaining when I was a kid.

“Chrissy,” she said smiling, “that’s just how they sing. It’s nothing to be scared of.”

From that day on, she called them “woo birds” with a slight laugh, and her explanation made me not fear them.

I had noticed it before when we had played here, and now it was back in the same spot. Watching.

We began to play, and I realized how far along we had come from those weeks prior when I had to tape up her arm for tennis elbow. We had learned a lot.

“Does this hurt?” I asked when I tried to remove the first piece. I had helped her apply black tape, the type you see all the Olympians wearing while they tough out an injury to play.

“No.”

I took more off. There was no wincing.

“How about now?”

“No,” she replied calmly.

I thought maybe it was like one of those no-stick bandaids. And with no signs of pain, I ripped it across the rest of the way. That’s when the screaming started, but I was in mid-rip, so the momentum carries you.

“You took off all of my DNA!”

“You said it didn’t hurt!”

“Not at first!”

“Do you want me to put another piece on?”

“NO! I will do it!”

I wasn’t getting by pain-free either. Those first few sessions had left my lower body in agony that would strike, especially when I went up or down stairs. Epsom salts and the tub became my best friend.

That was all behind us now as we had gotten stronger and faster.

“That ball hit this crack over here,” she said. I had traded the superior for not as good, so I did what I always did. I prayed. As the hoo bird was my witness, I said,

“God, have the city fill in these cracks and get all these weeds out of here. I command it in the name of Jesus that they clean this up for us.”

That was it. We played, she won, and we switched sides.

I listened to the elderly couple talk and laugh with each other as she weed whipped, and he picked up sticks and branches. What a great antidote to the ugly behavior I had seen the day before.

Within moments, a city truck pulled up, and a man came to the fence.

I was attempting to return a ball.

“That hit the crack, and I still got it over,” I said to my opponent, who can beat me at every game now that her elbow is healed.

“That’s why I’m here. I just sprayed weed killer not long ago, and now I’m back to assess how I can fix this up.”

I told him what had happened at the other court.

“Pickleball players, especially the older ones, can be very mean.”

One of the comments made to me the day before was how “nasty” I was when pickleball was a sport that was always so nice. It was an attempt to bad-mouth me.

“You run into mean people?” I asked.

“Yes.”

There’s another location he services that has courts like the one we had been kicked off of.

“They are not nice. They act like they own that place,” he said.

I had tried to reason nicely, and because I hadn’t given in, I was also called disrespectful. So I wasn’t a bad person, and his description sounded like what I had said to the woman. Territorial.

“We like to play, and I will play here no matter how awful it is to avoid all that meanness.”

“I will work on this,” he said. “I can make this nicer.”

“Don’t make it too nice. Keep it kind of crappy, so it doesn’t get taken over,” I said.

“I will try,” he said, smiling.

Before I left, I introduced myself to the happy couple working in their yard. Even while they were engaged in manual labor, they would stop every so often, talk, and start to laugh.

“You two don’t seem like you are working. You seem happy together.”

As he slathered on sunscreen, he said,

“You don’t see us all the time,” sending her into another round of laughing.

The next day when we returned, he yelled,

“Good morning, ladies!” as he jumped in his truck and drove away.

And just like that, God turned water into wine.

Peace and happiness no matter what…

Death

Posted on by Christine

I quit my job in January. One that I had done for a long time. Unless there was something new to learn, I could work with my eyes closed throughout my daily existence. When I started, I knew nothing about the industry I was helping in; everything was an acronym. When I was in the presence of seasoned business world employees, I felt so stupid, not knowing what anyone was talking about.

I had to go to the local jail and have my fingerprints taken to do my job. I remember feeling so frightened by the presence of so many in authority and this overwhelming feeling of sadness mixed with aggression. I had to wait, and out of mounting anxiety, I stood with my back against the wall to ensure that no one would be unexpectedly behind me. 

I was alone and didn’t feel safe, even though I was in the presence of law enforcement. I watched as a man went through the process I was there for, but he was not going to work, but rather a cell. Some have said their jobs are a prison, and his was about to be at that moment. The female officer took his fingers, rolled them on an ink pad, and placed them on a white card. 

They said nothing to one another. 

When he was moved on, I was summoned forward with her motioning to me with her hand. There were no pleasantries spoken. 

I went in her direction, not fully knowing what I needed to say. I was adjusting to encountering uncertain circumstances as I had never been in before. 

Just as I was going to speak, a man was escorted past me in handcuffs by two police officers, one on each side. He had his head down, like he was ashamed of himself, not wanting any of us to make eye contact with him. His sins had caught up with him, and he couldn’t bear to look humanity in the eye. 

How does a person get there? He was once a small boy, innocently set into the world, and now going into a cage that clearly wouldn’t offer him any forgiveness. He had to be held accountable for whatever transgressions he had done, but what had created this life along the way? This dejected individual had participated in activity that had landed him here, but why? What had been the mixture of mistakes blended, putting him on a path of self-destruction? 

As a mom of two, newly divorced, and wanting to raise them right, I wanted to know. I turned away quickly and told her what I needed. 

She mechanically went to work, doing the same as the man before me. I glanced nervously around, keeping my purse secured across the front of my body. I was in a place where many thieves were gathered, so I felt this overwhelming need to protect myself. 

As she finished my last finger, I said,

“This is the only time I am ever doing this.”

This brought on a smile from her and a slight laugh.

“That’s a good idea,” she said.

I was given a copy of my identity, the one God gave me at birth, and I left the jail that day a free woman. 

The intimidation there was nothing compared to what was up next. 

I recall being at a meeting and overhearing someone commenting on another assistant. She had asked a basic question, which was being made fun of. It was along the lines of, “Can you believe she asked that? She should know that.” This was when I was brand new. 

I wasn’t up for exposing myself to ridicule. From that point on, I listened intently, wanting so much to learn the language. Never fully revealing that I was so lost, especially not in public. 

I found myself flying under the radar like I always had to smile and nod as if I knew what was going on. I didn’t realize I was advancing as I sat day after day, trying to overcome what felt like a learning disability. While the rest of the class was moving on, I felt the dead weight, looking at paperwork with many questions and writing it down. Multicolored sticky notes graced everything in those early days, or I would spend a lot of energy trying to remember who was who and what was what to exasperation. 

They say it takes six months to comprehend a new job. Don’t give up until you hit that mark, is the advice, so I stayed for fourteen years. Sometimes not fully comprehending what was happening but desperately wanted to do a good job. 

I could have quit many times during that span, but I held on, not fully aware of all the understanding I was getting. God had put me there for a reason, and I knew that I would miss out on something of importance if I quit. 

One day, as I looked at the piles and stacks of everything that needed a proper place, I had a vision of an abandoned field. It had rocks and weeds all over it, left unattended for a while. 

“Don’t give up. Help clean up the field so the ground is good again. I will help you do it; you can do this no matter how difficult it might get.”

Then I was shown a field filled with healthy crops, growing strong, every inch producing as it should.

“Help make that happen,” I heard in my mind. 

I never can say no to God. While I wanted to run and find a different place entirely, I knew that this was what I was being asked to do. I instantly remembered telling God a while before this that I didn’t want my will anymore and was giving myself away to heaven’s lead. I was fully aware of having my own “will,” and many a preacher had expounded on this; God and I would forever be at odds, me wanting my way against His. 

I chose to give mine up, and whenever faced with a moment of possible tug of war between my Creator and me, the still small voice would say,

“Did you give me your will?”

That is still all it takes for me to drop the fight. 

The place I found the most helpful to navigate the unknown waters of this job was one that many would have overlooked. But, God led me in the way I was to go, true to the promise. 

One of the biggest challenges was organizing all the paper that used to accumulate. There were boxes and boxes filled with filing to do, so I began sorting through it all by name, putting everything in alphabetical order, still not fully seeing the bigger picture. This was before the idea of going green existed. To help my mind keep things straight, I implemented a system of colors, with each folder representing a specific type of client and what they had with the company. 

I was so wrapped up in trying to grasp every concept that any small mistake I made was like an absolute failure. When I thought I had mastered something, it would be called to my attention that I hadn’t done something right. That wasn’t easy to swallow and put my self-confidence back at zero. 

In reality, all those missteps taught me how to become what I was striving to be. 

As I went through the organization process, I began creating “dead files” boxes. These were shoved into a far dark corner, known as cold storage. They had no purpose anymore, some from customers who had moved on to other advisors and others who had moved on from earth.

After getting the active cases put away, which took months, I looked around to see what I could fix next. I opened the lid on the first of many. When I had been trying to focus on the “living,” I had randomly placed all of the old ones haphazardly aside to deal with later.

Now was later. 

A critical component of my position was to be sure that past information was locked up and shredded, adhering to the law. If a client no longer was with the company, their files had to be kept for a certain amount of time and then destroyed. I went about creating a database, cataloging everyone, especially those who needed to be disposed of, so we would comply. 

Amazingly, this is what held the key to my understanding. 

Day after day, I spent an entire summer alone, sifting through unneeded material, either shredding on the spot or marking it to be done later. Because these were no longer viable contacts, I became relaxed, and specific ideas and thoughts would become illuminated that had been so dark. It was as if a silent instructor stood by me, telling me what to do, taking away the struggle. I finally started to learn the language. 

I remember being shocked that I could carry on an intelligent conversation, putting words and sentences together because I finally understood what I was doing. Even though it took a lot of trial and error, I was thrilled that I knew more than before. 

Somewhere amongst the dead files, I had found life. 

I did what I knew I was to do, behind the scenes digging up a plot of land, making room for a productive venture that could function at its highest, bringing great benefits to the clients under the company’s care and even myself in some ways I had not imagined at the onset. 

To leave that behind wasn’t easy. But, again, I started to hear that voice telling me there was something else I was needed for. 

I ignored it for a while, not wanting to go back to a time of uncertainty. I had overcome the hurdles, and now I tried to coast along, believing this was it. I had made it. Why mess with something that I had worked so diligently to construct? 

Because I don’t belong to me. 

Driving alone with nothing to distract me, I heard,

“I have something else I need you to do. You will thank me later.”

It wasn’t easy to see the road after that, but I knew I wasn’t staying where I had been. 

It isn’t until you no longer do what you have been that you are mindful of how much of yourself you had committed to that. You have flashes of memories where you see you did what you were told to do even when you didn’t want to. You put everything of yourself in it, and now what? Do that again? 

Within days of resigning, I heard one morning, when I was barely awake, 

“You need to be a hospice volunteer.”

I had wanted to go into this for a while, but I had put it off. Three years ago, I looked at getting a higher education to my B.A. in Psychology to do this and earn money doing it, but as I tried to, doors seemed slammed shut. I was given wrong information, left messages that never got called back, and was told the only way I could do the work I wanted and get paid was to spend at least four years in school far and away from the actual work. 

While out on a walk in deep frustration, again the voice came,

“Work with people for now. Not paper.”

I knew this was an answer to stop pursuing school and sign up for the work, even if it meant doing it for free. 

Then Covid hit, closing the door for a bit.

Now unemployed, I was being told to pick it up again. I looked up hospice in my area, which there are a million, but picked the one that appeared first. I have learned that doors fly open when God leads you, despite trying to reason your way out of it. 

Filling out 21 pages of the orientation requirements made me wonder what they do to a person who they hire for real. I had to submit a resume, give them three references from people who would vouch for my character, do a background check, and even give blood. 

The technician was new, and it sprayed everywhere. I felt so emotionally beat down that it was a sign I was still alive. Usually, that might have bothered me, but I didn’t even care. 

“I am so sorry!” She said, embarrassed, eyes wide behind her mask. 

“That’s ok,” I said, remembering what it was like to start a new job that I had just left. I had moved quickly enough so it missed my clothes. For a week, the massive bruise on my arm reminded me that I had signed up for this. 

I was given some patients and began the journey. It’s a lot of listening, praying, and sometimes just quietly sitting still and observing. 

I often listen with my eyes. That sounds strange, but it’s true. 

A few weeks ago, as I said hello to one under my care, she looked at me, and I knew. 

Nothing was different about her health situation, and it appeared the same, but I was made aware with the voice speaking to me again of what was to come. She wasn’t going to be here much longer. So I did my best despite knowing that it wasn’t going to be long. 

Last week, when I went to see her before I got to her room, I heard in my mind, 

“If you see her lying in bed, this is your sign that you know she’s leaving soon.”

Usually sitting up in the sun in the day room, I found her lying on her bed, sound asleep. I didn’t wake her, but I knew this would be the last time I saw her, so I quietly said goodbye.

I thought of her this past week, the day before I was to visit again. I even commented to my daughter that I felt I wouldn’t see her. Just before I left the house to go to her assisted living, I felt like I was to check my email. There I found a note telling me she had passed that morning. I was thanked for making her time left more pleasant.

I was glad I said certain things to her and made her laugh. It was the only indication that she was okay with me being there. When you know things ahead of time like this, a mixture of emotions follows. 

“I will check in on you next week,” I would say as I would leave. “I wanted to see how you were doing.”

She would then smile and say,

“I am so glad you did.” 

Her door was shut to her room when I got there the other day, and the spot in the day room where she sat was vacant. It appears as if it’s over to those who don’t see. On the other side, however, she is beaming in bright light, fully back to the fullness of her youth. I know that she walks now alongside those who have gone before her, and she is happy to be next to her husband, who she loved on earth so very much. 

This isn’t a job where I shuffle papers, and it’s not going to pay a single bill. 

It is a moment to become more aware of my days and those ahead of me. 

Again I find myself trying to understand something new about life while looking for answers to what is deemed as death. 

 It’s what we trust in but don’t yet see that keeps us going. Do you suppose a few ruts in the road or rocks in the path are going to stop us? When the time comes, we’ll be plenty ready to exchange exile for homecoming. (2 Corinthians. 5:7)

He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less. (John 3:30)

(One of the places, I listen with my eyes)

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….)

After the Burn

Posted on by Christine

It was a great idea born out of not being able to leave the house safely. We had been warned that the worst blast of cold air was coming, and if you stepped one foot outside, you better have your funeral arrangements in order. 

You don’t take your chances with a windchill forecast at almost 60 below. We were making history, they said. With that announcement, the frantic rush to the grocery store always comes, and as I don’t panic, I watch others who do. I just happen to pop in, and I forget we are on the verge of the world coming to an end. Again. 

If it’s not a meteor ready to scrape up against the globe, sending us spinning off the axis, it’s the ice age resurrecting itself that will for sure this time put us into deathly hypothermia and kill us all. 

I have seen things in stores that I often do not understand when we are on red alert, like the lady in the spaghetti aisle grabbing every jar of sauce while wearing multiple black trash bags. This was to ward off the virus when it first began. 

I think there may have been some time spent on the internet researching what germs may or may not adhere to. She was on the cutting edge of an unknown scientific fact, I’m sure. It definitely wasn’t to create a fashion statement.  

I felt guilty taking the one I did. She wasn’t in the organic section, but she eyed me from afar as if I was stealing, with sweat on her brow.  

I walked away from Darth Vader, hearing the sound of her plastic wardrobe crunch with every move she made. I wanted to tell her to hang on to that for when we experienced a cold snap again. Make it versatile for pandemics and artic freezes.  

Once you get past the hunting and gathering portion of the impending doom, and you know you will be inside, you start to think of those chores you have not gotten around to. Tasks that you push aside because no one will ever know if you did it or not, except the people who live there. 

I used the oven, and someone, probably me, had the unfortunate mishap of a piece of food falling on the burner below. Every time it got hot, smoke would start to roll out. It caused me to look further and see that not one of us had taken the time to attend to it. 

With it being so cold, I figured why not turn on the self-clean cycle and let it do the work while I buried myself under a million blankets? 

I had to look online to find the instructions as the owner’s manual was long gone. Once I shut the door and set it at the highest setting, I walked away to live a life of polar vortex luxury. 

As long as the furnace kept up, we were secure. I figured with the stove going at its highest heat, it would help the house stay warm. I had done this in the summer one time, and it caused the air conditioner to be on the whole time it went through the process. 

I thought I was being so bright this time.

Until we all couldn’t see each other over the black haze that suddenly started filling the entire upstairs, and the smoke alarm went off. 

My first inclination was to open the oven door, but it has that safety feature where it locks until it cools down, so a crazy person trying to open it can’t. Someone at a drawing board had thought this through. I guess it was so that I wouldn’t burn off important parts of myself.

There will be a person who needs to open this, and we have to make it so they cannot do that for their own good. Let them inhale the smoke instead. That’s much safer. 

The next thing to do was grab a dishtowel and try to get the loud blaring sound to quit. If this was going off in the dead of night, that is one thing. But, this was not an emergency that warranted the alarm. So this life-saving device was now just annoying. Once I got it under control, I knew I would have to open up windows.

“I cannot believe I am doing this!” I said to the two people who already think my ways are a little off.  

One of them puts tags on my Christmas presents that say: To: Danny Tanner.

The dad from Full House who has this weird cleaning obsession on the show. 

There are crucial moments with your kids where you just know they live their lives trying to just get past your dumb ideas. And, it was so apparent in their eyes as they watched me frantically claw to get fresh air in. The air that most wanted to keep out and we had been warned about to avoid. 

I heard the furnace click on, and the smoke alarm went off again. We were freezing, breathing in cough-inducing fumes. But, the oven was the cleanest it had been in a long time. Whatever had been burnt to a crisp in there was long gone. Looking back now, I probably wouldn’t make that same decision. 

There are other situations such as that one that I would not ever repeat, like being in the sun with no protection on my skin. When I was younger, I gave it no thought. You learn as you go, and when you fall asleep on your stomach while floating on a lake, it helps you to understand why that was not a good life choice. Food isn’t the only substance that can become scorched. 

It wasn’t so bad right after I woke up and went back inside. It was that night when I was unable to move without a billion needles going through my whole back. Just moving my toothbrush across my teeth was volcanic. 

My mom had a lotion that she attempted to rub into the area. With her hands. On my skin. Not a spray from halfway across the room. No, it had to be applied by her rough, calloused hands all over me. 

“Chris, just stand still. I need to put this on you. Why did you stay out there so long?”

These were the questions that I never understood when she asked me. My lips were too cracked to even answer. 

“My face hurts,” I said, barely able to speak.

“It hurts me more,” my dad said as he came whipping by, laughing. Never helpful. 

The worst part of the healing process was when that area was accidentally exposed to sunlight too soon after. It was instant pain. Or if any type of noun touched it. Like bed sheets, clothing, anything. It all was excruciating.  

The next part was gross as my body shed off all the dead skin. I flaked everywhere I went as a reminder that I had made a bad mistake. 

Years later, I had a few moles removed because they claimed they were precancerous.  

“It must be from that time you spent too much time in the sun,” she said.  

I had taken sunblock seriously after that. To the point of getting the highest SPF possible. Still, I have always had this slight paranoia that it might happen again when I least expect it. You just don’t forget the experience of a charring session like that. 

I have found that the same can be said for an emotional torching as well. When you have been through a situation that has been difficult, but you make it, anything that comes close to reminding you of that time makes you want to run away, just like finding shade to not inflict more hurt. 

I cannot go through life avoiding the sun completely. And, really, it’s not the light’s fault. It was the amount of time I spent in it which caused the damage. I then had to learn how to handle it differently and not let history repeat itself. 

That is what boundaries are for. You know those things that you put down to make it clear that you won’t put up with certain things happening in your life anymore. Maybe you figure out your value, so you don’t want to be around people who don’t see you as God does.  

Another thing that happens is you start to see those pieces of yourself where you still struggle and need God’s help. They are there to remind you that you spent too much time being fried. And when you feel that familiar uncomfortable feeling, it is time to acknowledge it and address it. It’s better to bring it into the daylight.

When something triggers a bad memory, that is not the time to run and hide, but to give it to God so it can be taken care of. Like this from Psalm 34:18:

If your heart is broken, you’ll find God right there;

if you’re kicked in the gut, he’ll help you catch your breath. (Message)

I slept through my sunburn. The difficult part came later when I had to let my skin re-establish itself. I had to take precautions, be more mindful and let myself regenerate to live without suffering. 

Whether it is physical or mental, this same treatment can be applied after the burn. 

Get the spray..for real..

Fenced In

Posted on by Christine

“I think your dog got out,” she said when I came around the corner. “My boys opened the front door, and she ran off.”

She was still speaking while I was flying toward the front yard. The way it was said so casually indicated to me that she had no idea the jog I was about to take. Or the danger that my pet was in.

It was pouring rain, and I had dashed out without shoes so my socks were soaking wet in seconds. I could see her way up ahead, nose to the ground, oblivious to the cars zipping by.

This wasn’t the first chase I had been on since getting her. I had no idea when I was researching dog breeds and which one to get that this would be something to contend with.

She had been born and raised in a place that wasn’t the best. When I got to the location, there were beagle puppies running everywhere. The mom hid under an old beat-up car and looked at me with sad eyes. I didn’t know about puppy mills back then, but the conditions looked rough. When I took her to the vet because she had so many parasites, I was given medication actually to save her life.

“If you hadn’t taken her in, she would have died soon,” I was told. She was so wild and full of energy that I would have never known.

It appeared to be a farm that hadn’t been taken care of, so dog breeding had been thrown in to raise funds. There were so many dogs going in all directions that I decided to sit on a gravel path to see what would happen.

A very tiny girl puppy came and started pulling on my shoelace. The harder I tried to get it away from her, the more ferocious she held on and threw in a little growl while wagging her tail. When she was tired of that, she curled up in my lap.

“She’s the runt of the litter,” the breeder said. So was I, and she became mine.

My backyard had no fence, but we were told she was so small that we could probably catch her. Probably not. A chain-link fence had to go up immediately.

I took her to obedience classes. While all the other students ran to their owners, she visited everyone else and their dogs around the room. I wasn’t even an afterthought.

“Beagles have a heart of gold, but they will not listen. They will follow a scent and forget what is around them completely. They get focused and do not hear. It’s really difficult to train that out of them.”

So I ran down the sidewalk yelling her name, trying to catch her attention during a spring thunderstorm. We never went out the front door, and the people there were looking to buy something listed in the paper.

A neighbor waved at me from his garage as I tried to get closer to her. All of them had seen this happen so many times between the two of us.

She would spend a few moments on one spot of grass and then suddenly zoom away as if triggered by a smell of something she just had to investigate.

It ended the same way every single time. I was now blocks from home, within inches of her, out of breath, and she would realize I was behind her.

“Libby!” I would say for the millionth time, and she would stop.

“You stay.” And she would, now worn out from her half-crazed jaunt.

She wasn’t sitting still out of realizing she had done wrong; she was exhausted and wanted a lift back home.

Curling into a small ball, she would wait until I picked her up to carry her.

I walked back into my house with a dripping wet dog. I peeled off my socks in the kitchen.

“Oh. You caught her,” the lady said, smiling. My hair was dripping into my eyes. One of her teenage boys went through the front door, and Libby charged again, ready to have a second round. I grabbed her before It could happen.

I went over and locked the door. The lady looked at me like I was being rude, locking her son outside.

With a tight grip on the dog, I said,

“Either they stay in the garage or come in the house. I have had my exercise for today.”

I stalked off to find dry towels with her securely in my arms. If given a chance, she would do it all over again. And that lady didn’t get it.

Some would say that an animal can’t control their behavior, such as Libby, who once on a trail had to follow it.

I have met people who have been on that path. It’s operating on no filter and sheer determination to satisfy something that may be a bit out of balance.

During one of my shifts as a shelver at a public library, I was approached by a woman.

“Can you tell me where the adult videos are?” It was a low whisper.

I held a stack of DVDs that I was putting back. I knew what she was asking me, but I decided to pretend I didn’t fully comprehend.

“All of the material for adults is right here. The children’s section is toward the entry.”

I made no eye contact and went back to my task. This was one of those moments when I wished she had gone to the reference desk. I was a lowly shelver, and they were paid and trained to deal with these issues.

“No,” she insisted. This is not what I am looking for. I want movies for adults.”

I held up what I had in my hands.

“These are for adults.”

I was trying to have her give up and walk away. Inwardly, I was screaming for God to help me. I kept my facial expression neutral.

“You don’t seem to understand me,” she retorted. Now she was getting snippy, not realizing I was brushing her off for her good.

“I want movies made for adults only.”

“You are looking right at them,” I said, not budging for the third time.

“I want X-rated movies. Porn! I want porn!” She said this not with an inside voice, and her quest to get what she wanted had overtaken her ability to practice self-control in a public place.

A couple of patrons glanced our way. It was a quiet weeknight, so the crowd was thin, but the older man looking at the history selection looked a bit shocked. I smiled weakly at him. I knew it was part of my job to keep things orderly, and that wasn’t just the books.

My subtle efforts to redirect her had gone unnoticed, so I had to set her straight now. Her drive for something like my beagle escaping was taking her to places she shouldn’t be.

“This is a public library. Are you aware of how the media gets paid for so you and everyone else can come here and check out material for free? Do you know how that system works?”

She blinked when the realization hit her that I was a lot more intelligent than I had come across initially. I didn’t demean her, but with as much professionalism I had within me, I continued to inform her about the ways and means of purchases made so the community at large could enjoy them.

“This is all possible with taxpayer money. Do you think people will sign up to pay for what you are looking for?”

Now she had gone silent. I had killed the mood with talk about taxes. You can pretty much make a room go silent if you start talking about the IRS.

“You aren’t going to find what you are looking for anywhere in this building. Does that make sense?”

She nodded.

“I don’t want to see you wasting your time going from place to place searching for something that doesn’t exist. You will not find that here or at any other locations.”

I was helping her but also sparing other employees from this conversation later.

I kept my voice low and made sure I didn’t make her feel bad. If anyone felt horrible, it was me! I wanted to drop everything and run for the break room. But I fought off my awkwardness to help her understand.

Suddenly, she looked ashamed, mumbled thank you, and walked away.

She just needed someone to put down a boundary to bring clarity.

No one is immune to saying or doing things based on habits or even false ways of thinking. Self-discipline isn’t always at the top of the priority list, and something that starts out innocently can run amuck.

I learned this when I was in elementary school. Every Christmas, my dad would make homemade chip dip. This was the only time of the year that we would have it, and it was my favorite. I basically ate nothing else but that when he brought it out on Christmas Eve. It was like a bowl of an addictive substance I could not leave alone. And every year at midnight, I was violently throwing up.

When I was nine years old, my mom anticipated my upcoming vomit session by addressing me before it hit the table.

“Chris, try not to overeat that this year.” She told me this while he had the mixer going and was in the process of putting it together.

As she gave me this speech, my brother’s girlfriend asked,

“What are you talking about?”

“Chris throws up every year because she overeats chip dip. Every year!” She had to add a sigh like it was the end of the world.

“I will give you a quarter if you don’t get sick this time,” she said.

As the night went by, I thought about the deal struck, and it made me consider my choices. I limited my indulgence. It was my first year that I didn’t have to run for the bathroom in the early hours of Christmas Day. My mother rejoiced and offered me a quarter until my late thirties to ensure I never did it again.

All that was needed was a guideline so I could adjust my actions. While I had to be the guardian of Libby and give assertive instruction to a stranger in the library, I had control over my own fate.

When it gets difficult to see past the addiction or the behaviors that aren’t for your highest good, that’s where God can help. Heaven will come gently to your side and offer assistance so you can advance. It might be in the form of a counselor, a sign that change must occur, or a quarter. In 2 Corinthians 3:17, it says,

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (NIV)

And if you are wondering if God wants to be there for you, read this from Psalm 91,

If you’ll hold on to me for dear life,” says God,
“I’ll get you out of any trouble.
I’ll give you the best of care
if you’ll only get to know and trust me.
Call me, and I’ll answer, be at your side in bad times;
I’ll rescue you, then throw you a party.
I’ll give you a long life.” (Message)

All it takes is realizing that you want better for yourself and a simple prayer. Strength will come to you to get past the situation where you can live at a higher level, with no limitations, never feeling restricted or fenced in.

(Just Say No…)