Friday, July 2, 2010

Colors

If hurt had a color, what color would that be?

I would color it red
Like my neighbor's son's car when he comes to visit her.

I would color it white
Like the smiles I remember from so long ago.

I would color it blue
The blue of a baseball uniform you wear in the picture by my bed.

I would color it pink
Like your sister's dance leotard when she posed so proudly beside you.

If hurt had a color it would be the colors of the rainbow,
For not so long ago, you were the color in my world.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

We're Still Talking About What I Think We're Talking About -- Right?

Listening to stories about my ex and his girlfriend is similar to throwing away your 12th grade World Cultures notes on the last day of school.  There's a certain YEA!-I'm-done-with-this feeling that strikes me all over again, as it did during our separation and ensuing divorce.  I listen to my daughter recount my ex's liberal drinking and sleeping habits, his religious, exhaustive and expensive diner/ convenience store patronage, ridiculously time-consuming ? projects and complete retreat from responsibility, and I want to jump up and down screaming, "Tell me what I'm missing!  Tell me what I will never, ever, ever have to stress over again.  Tell me what will never ever consume my thoughts again, make my stomach churn, or reduce me to feeling totally worthless and cause me to eat an entire pint of Ben and Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch!"  I do my happy dance and sing like I would if I won the lottery (if I played).  It reminds me that I am free -- free from worry, free from carrying my burden all alone, free from deception, duplicity and harm.

I'll be honest, I don't always feel that way.  Not because I shouldn't, but because over my years of wallowing I developed a vile habit of living like I am still in the pen.  I don't always walk as though I have been redeemed.  I don't always think as if I have begun a new life.  I sometimes am drawn to feeling burdened or sick with worry, strictly because it is what I knew for so long.  There are times when I damage my new life by patching it with logic(?) and mistrust -- remnants from the old existence.  But Scott has been there before; he understands. 

If he and I had never taken that first walk along Penn's Landing, if we had never fallen so deeply, crazily in love, if we never had the slightest inkling that we were sharing the same dreams with the one we were destined to spend the rest of our life with, I would be happy, for I had been released from my torment.  The fact that I was not only pulled from it but restored, given a new life, inspires and encourages me to walk and work and live and rejoice accordingly.

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Stop Stewing and Get Busy

A few years ago I was headed out to drop Christine off at a local church.  As I approached a traffic light, a woman pulled out in front of me.  In her attempt to get to the left lane, she stopped dead, blocking my lane.  I lightly tapped the horn and motioned for her to back up.  Nothing.  So, I rolled down the window and asked -- really I did, I asked her to move back, out of my lane to allow me to pass.  Well, this grey-haired woman sitting somewhere south of the steering wheel, let loose this stream of obscenities I could not believe!  I got the gist -- NO!  Bad enough I could see the church from the light -- it was right there, I wanted it, and I had every right to it -- but the what-for?!  After I was so good?  I felt wronged.  I dropped Christine off and went about the rest of my errands.  Of course, who do I run into at the market?  Yep, Potty Mouth!  And now she's singing church hymns as she cheerily wheels her cart past my car!  Now I was incensed!  Nevertheless, I remained quiet.  "She must be a lunatic," I reasoned.  "Besides, what would it accomplish?"  I was trying really hard to be a "good Christian" back in my legalistic days.

But, do you know teeth-gritting, seething silence not what God expects from us?  Romans 12:14 says to bless those who persecute us.  And not just those who blatantly persecute us for our name -- Christian, Believer, Born-Again.  What about those who "test" our faith?  Those who push us to the point we want to "unleash the beast?"  Who mock God and everything we stand for by waging unjust warfare in the name of Christ?  Or those who simply mistake kindness for weakness; who defy others to "call them" on their socially unacceptable or reprehensible behavior, and meet them on their terms.  We are not to bury our heads in the sand; we are to take action.

We forgive them as much as we can.  I've learned some forgiveness is a two-way street.  When it comes to those closest us, if they wrong us they must want to be forgiven.  We demonstrate love for one another by not wanting to hurt each other, if a relationship is to remain healthy, fair and fulfilling.  If someone, for whatever reason is unaffected by or unapologetic for the pain they've inflicted, we must make prayerful decisions and seek God's counsel regarding how the relationship is to continue.  For those with whom we have no apparent "investment" or "commitment," we forgive, anticipating our next encounter and not allowing the previous one to affect us so negatively; we remember who we are -- sinners saved by God's grace alone, undeserving of "breaks," or special treatment, or kindness by a world in which we once walked.

We love them.  When I was young, my father scolded me for "loving" my dog.  "You can't love someone or something that cannot love you back."  Like forgiveness, some love is a two-way street -- like when it comes to those with whom you chose to make your life.  But the Greek language is wonderful in that it distinguishes between that kind of love and agape love -- selfless, unconditional, requiring nothing from others.  If my dad had been right, there's no possible way God could have loved me enough to send Jesus to the cross in my place.  That's what He requires of us toward our enemies or, as in Luke 6, Christian-haters and those with an active desire to hurt.  If we love them, it only follows that we do good to them, bless them and pray for them.  For what is love but wanting good things for someone? for wanting God to give them the best? for asking God's protection for them?  Romans 12:20 says to feed him, give him something to drink.  Bread of Life or Panera's.  Living Water or Propel.  Whatever it takes -- this is love, after all.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

HAPPY 20TH BIRTHDAY, STEVEN!  I LOVE YOU!

Monday, June 28, 2010

Hindsight Isn't Always 20/20

Many people often use the expression, "If I knew then what I know now..."  When I've spent incredible amounts of time suffering the consequences or cleaning up the offal of a bad decision gone worse, I've thought the same thing.  Today I wondered what that would really be like.  Sure, it would have its advantages, but what about the disadvantages?

  I would never have recklessly, unrestrainedly slurped spaghetti, because such a careless act leaves gravy in your hair and stains on your shirt.

  I would never have played with frogs, and bugs, and worms because of Anthrax in the dirt and the Salmonella that amphibians carry.

  I would never have given my best smile and cheeriest "hello" to total strangers because they would think I was weird.

  I would never have gotten up in front of a group of my fellow students and their parents to read a poem I wrote that began, "Arbor Day is not involved in work, school or play.  It is not involved with bees; it is really involved with trees."

  I would never have learned to skate, or ride a bike, or sing, or cook, or hang upside down on the monkey bars because I look ridiculous when I fail.

  I would never have loved, because loving someone who doesn't love you back hurts.

"There is no failure except in no longer trying." ~Elbert Hubbard

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Milestone or Millstone?

Aaaah... Summer is here.  Not that I'm a big fan -- give me a sweet spring morning or a brisk fall day, and I'm a very happy camper-- but this is the time for...?  Rivulets of sweat?  Barbecue?  Work?  It's not like we're kids anymore, with the long days of summer providing three months of freedom. But shouldn't the milestones we've passed in the last few weeks still serve to remind us of hard work and accomplishment? After all, Christine is finished school for the year, and as her evaluator reviewed two semesters' worth of accomplishment -- tests taken and passed, or not, projects and assignments -- we marked the end of Christine's sophomore year -- a milestone. At Vacation Bible School on Friday I watched children burst through the doors of the church hall, spilling out onto the lawn, ready to spend lazy days swimming and playing -- VBS heralds the start of summer fun. Last night as Christine flew across the stage as a bat in Sleeping Beauty, she reached another cairn -- one, she noted (as if I needed reminding), that means only two more years until she does her senior solo and dances her way off to adulthood. These next two years will be full of such events.

Sometimes I realize I am living my life only to reach the next mile marker. "If I can just get through the next week, I'll be able to relax," or "If I can just get this bill paid, we'll be ready for the next thing that comes along."  Well, by the following week my house needs cleaning again, and the bills for next month are starting to arrive.  It's no wonder folks today are medicated, stressed out, depressed and empty; so much pressure is like a millstone, and it drags us down. No one wants to be a grasshopper, fiddling life away with no preparation for the future or exhibiting a poor work ethic; I was raised by ants. My father was in his seventies when he stopped working at least two jobs; my mother filled her spare time (between a full-time job and "momming") by volunteering, and at almost eighty years young, she works every day outside the home. But God didn't make flowers and sunsets for us to ignore. What is the point in His gift of beauty if we are constantly working around it or putting it off until we have time for it? Which, if you're an ant, is never. God rested after six days, not because He needed it, but because we need it. It was another gift to us -- the gift of rest, rejuvenation and play! God didn't look at mankind after six days and say, "Good. Well, now that that's over with, I think I'll read a bit." There was plenty of work to be done, for the next ten thousand years or so, but God set aside time to pause, stop racing toward the next milestone, enjoy the fruits of His labor, enjoy us. How about making it our next objective to follow His lead?

Photo courtesy LuAnn Martin