How to find a church in 30 days or less
Recently, our family decided to embark on a great adventure: church shopping. And to make it something worth writing about, and I refuse to apologize if it offends, we decided to make it more like a spree. After several discussions where we laid ground rules about what we consider non negotiable qualities we want to find, as well as the traits we want to avoid, we set out at 9:30 am Sunday morning. As a result of our first adventure, I was able to come up with a quick tip list just in case my readers find themselves in a similar situation.
1. If you are new to a city, print a map to the churches you’d like to try attending, and make sure you have the service times listed on the stars or stickers or whatever you use to mark the spots. I don’t actually know yet how helpful this is, but I do know that it’s extremely unhelpful to discover the first church you are going to is not a church at all but a meeting for what could be recovering alcoholics who do not wish to be associated with agnostics. I honestly don’t know because we didn’t stick around long enough to enhance our knowledge.
2. Don’t go early. This may seem a little hinkie to some people, but I promise I can back this up (not so much with Scripture, but for sure with experience).
I’ve always been an early-to-church kind of person. I really, really like coffee and people. If I didn’t go early to church back home, I’m afraid I wouldn’t get enough words out prior to the sermon and I might ask a few questions during our poor pastor’s message (I call the pastor at our home church poor, and if you wonder why, just read any of my blogs, I’m a handful).
However, applying the same logic when church shopping is unwise. I can tell you for sure that what happens, at least to someone like me, is that I’m almost tempted to sit through a meeting about addiction recovery because I just ate one of these people’s cinnamon rolls (and so did all of my kids) and was properly introduced to several people attending the meeting by a man who had a seemingly kind heart.
When you arrive about 10 minutes late, the music is playing already, and the feeling of obligation is lessened because you have no personal ties to anyone in the sanctuary. The last thing I want to do is ruin some poor soul’s Sunday by leaving in the middle of service. I imagine that person wondering all day whether they said or did something that drove me and my family out the door.
3. Come up with a secret signal. I mean it. This is especially important if there are more than three of you shopping. We learned this the hard way. We basically take up a row, so when one person feels led to get up and leave, which is something we all agreed (don’t worry, we told the young ones boredom is not a reason to leave), we have to play a game of Telephone before we get up and go. And inevitably, two of us are perplexed. “Why is everyone getting up? I thought you said ‘Let it snow.’” But really when we start praying for a microphone to break to calm the tropical bird sound coming from the worship leader, it’s way past secret signal time anyway.
4. Research your options. I drove by churches, looked at their websites, read their bylaws, listened to podcast sermons. I still found myself in the middle of something I can only compare a color guard/mime event where I was truly concerned about the fragility of the hips of the ribbon flag flingers and dancers as well as their seemingly dangerous proximity to each other. I’m not sure why this was something I didn’t hear about, and I can only wonder what on earth the person who referred me to that church thought about me to think I would find such a spectacle inspiring, enjoyable or biblical. This person was either as funny as me or thought I was some kind of weird bird. I can’t lie, though. It was interesting, and I will never forget anything about it.
I have looked in the Bible, and I can’t find miming or color guard listed as spiritual gifts or charisma, but if you can find it, let me know.
5. Sit near an exit. Obviously, you make less of an impact on the congregation when you leave from your emergency exit seat than when you have to walk in front of the congregation in what looks like a parade to leave a potentially spiritually damaging situation.
6. When you’re about to give up, pray. I know it seems silly and obvious, but after two churches in 25 minutes with children in tow, I kind of wanted to go home and mow the lawn. I kind of thought about pancakes. As we were driving to Church #1, we passed a church that I drive by every day. We noticed the sign for service time, an odd time, 30 minutes after everyone else. I remember saying, “Well if all else fails, we can go here.”
So there we went. We were about 14 minutes (at least) late, and worship was in progress. We’d had all the goofy experiences we could stand for the day, and I’m sure the Lord was aware that one more straw could have broken us on this beautiful Sunday. We sat, defensive and ready to leave. The only other option that Sunday would have been the Catholics, and while I love Catholic service and Catholics (and I’m not just saying that because I’m related to about 500 of them), I am concerned for what would happen at Communion and hymnal time. My children are more accustomed to the free-for-all, handful-of-crackers, take-the-fullest-grape-juice-cup-they-can-find Communion, where they are, of course, taught repentance and about what Jesus did for them.
The service we landed at last was refreshing, sound and beautiful. We will likely continue looking, but this church made a strong impact on our day, and really, our entire time we’ve been here in Casper.
7. I put a #7 here because some people think 7 is holy. But really, #7 can be to know what you’re looking for. We are looking for the Lord. And we are looking for love. Not as in the song lyric, but as in the hearts we seek to fellowship with, serve with and worship God with. For if we have not love…
I’m not your average mom and an ode to my mom
Why I’m not your typical mom. Let’s stop being so serious for once.
The first and most obvious trait that sets me apart from the other moms on my block or in the school or in the world is that I don’t care even a little bit about whether those moms think I’m involved enough in my children’s academic, social or spiritual lives. I once considered joining the PTA (or the PTO where I’m living now), but that whim was followed hastily by my rounding a corner to hear what the organization’s officers really say about the moms who don’t join or the ones who join for reasons other than status enhancers. I was never pushed to join because I made it well-known that I didn’t appreciate the craftiness of their “fundraisers.”
Later, when the leadership had changed, but not really, I had the excuse that I felt the PTA was a special interest group, which I was forbidden to join based on my integrity as a journalist. The obviousness of how that was “just an excuse” became clear around election time when I had to defend to my bosses that I had no control over what signs my poor husband chose to put in the yard. Again, click the link to find out why I call my husband poor.
PTA avoidance is not the only thing that makes me atypical, however. I also hate to give advice. If I give you advice, you may want to consider the source, if you know what I mean. I actually consider myself highly unqualified, as most of my techniques don’t actually help anyone do anything but occupy time while they wait for the inevitable. I’ve recently just decided to always give everyone the same advice for every problem because I’m tired of arguing with all the other moms who are experts at giving advice. Most of these arguments occur on Facebook since no one ever calls their own mother for advice anymore because moms everywhere from every generation have been demonized and cast out for their flaws. In a way, I hate the very medium I use for reaching people because no matter where we turn to find an answer, we also find that someone has perfected their methods to solving our problems in a way that makes us feel lazy, incompetent and completely inadequate.
So I tell them to call their mother, which makes me a hypocrite, but only kind of since I do call my mom, but I only use passive-aggressive communication to get advice because I don’t want her to feel like she didn’t teach me something I feel like I should know already. It’s a kindness, really. If I can steer a topic in the right direction, I can get unwitting advice. I do it all the time, and if I’ve spent more than 15 minutes with anyone reading this, I’ve probably done it with you too.
Other quirks (some call them flaws) set me apart and prevent other moms from including me on their Scentsy party mailing lists (like my distaste for attending parties where my hostess looks at the same three pages of a catalog that she’s been looking at for six weeks and muttering basic mathematical calculations under her breath every time someone hands her a check). They include things like how I try to tone down special events such as birthday parties to make them sound like something no one really wants to do or have. One unintended result of this, something that never happened with any of my other children, is that my son has never wanted a birthday party (no, I’m not kidding, and stop judging me). In reality, all I’m trying to do is ensure that if something happens to screw it up, they aren’t too disappointed because a birthday party isn’t really what life is about, right? I’ve spent the last two or three years trying to talk him into a birthday party, and all he wants is for “Nana to come over with some snacks.” I’m thinking that my mom isn’t going to want to drive eight hours to deliver a giant tub of cheese balls this year, so he’s going to need a party this year.
I think this is sort of an ode to my mother. In some ways I feel like I’m pretty normal, but that’s only because my mom made some of my maternal habits normal. I didn’t sing “Rock a By Baby” to my kids. I sang “You are My Sunshine.” I didn’t run to pick them up when they fell. I’ve let them get up and try again. I didn’t tell them to be brave. I’ve taught them to think of fear as a wall to be bulldozed. And I’ve never let them think that I’m perfect. I cry, I yell and I say I’m sorry. I tell them I don’t know, and then I ask them to tell me the answer when they figure it out. And then I listen to their wisdom.
My mom listened to, and I truly believe enjoyed, my stories, my ponderings and my dreams. She danced with me when I danced. She prayed with me at my bedside. She looks at me today, and I can see that she loves me and she is proud of the mother, wife and woman I’ve become. I don’t know, and I don’t at all care, if that is typical. I just know that I want my own children to see the same love and adoration when I look at them when they’ve gone to pursue their own stories, ponderings and dreams.
Thanks, Mom, and happy Mother’s Day.
Meeting new friends
Recently the husband sent a text. His crew at work was having a barbecue for their families and would I please come with him?
Oh, the excitement! The way he asked almost sounded like a date, plus I was going to meet his oilfield coworkers and their wives. Now for the few of you who just spit coffee out your noses, stop it. I moved from Montana to Wyoming. It’s the state directly south. The city I moved to has the same population. What could be that much different just because of a state line? Right?
Well. First of all, none of them were married, but they did have females with them that they called “girl”friends. I refuse to take that out of quotes, and you’ll soon see why. Second, in the state directly north of us, there are cows and wheat. Here there are oil wells. Don’t think for two seconds that they are the same at all. You see, with cows and wheat, you get out of bed before sunrise and work all day, all the while being NICE to people you come across in your processes. And the people who don’t have cows and wheat work in the city (if they can find a job) and also are nice.
I have yet to see a cow in my new state of residence. Or a head of wheat. Instead, I see lots and lots of Bedazzled women because the men who are home are sleeping because they just finished their thirteenth 16-hour shift in a place that’s not on a map. This isn’t consistent, though. About a third of the women have their husbands with them in public to carry the baby and the shopping bags. You always can tell the oilfield workers because their eyes are dead and they’re at the mall at 11 a.m. I would like to take this opportunity to tell these men’s wives or girlfriends that what they are doing is cruel and selfish. Stop dragging the guy who works 100 hours a week to the stupid mall every day. It’s mean, and he’d rather watch the kids while you go by yourself, I’m almost positive.
Turns out, though, not only men work in the oilfield. There are a couple of women out there as well. If you are one of those women, stop reading this now unless you do not plan on punching me in the face when I’ve offended you (I am afraid of you, but only in the physical sense). I have turned this over in my mind extensively, and I can’t fathom why on earth a woman would want to work in the environment that up until the barbecue I had only heard was somewhat challenging for even a moderately decent man to work in. You may think you have what it takes, but I’m sorry to say that if you do, you also probably have no right to be called a lady at any time. Ever.
Now I don’t want to come across as completely judgmental, but I quit swearing several years ago (this was an entertaining habit to break, and I think there may be few people in my life who are as offended by the word “Halibut!!” as by the word it replaced), and I tend to wince when I hear vulgar language, especially from a female. I understand the culture here is a tad different, but Emily Post was not banned in Wyoming and neither was Proverbs 31. At the very least, Martha Stewart can be consulted by the women who are offended by the goodie-goodie nature of everyone else. Martha has a rap sheet, and therefore can’t be considered pretentious anymore. After a couple of discussions where I really learned what “darkness cannot abide where there is light” meant, I felt like curling up in a shower stall and rocking back and forth. And believe me, that’s saying a lot because I’m not easily shocked.
Needless to say, I have no plans to develop long-standing bonds with those people in spite of the endless entertainment value it would provide, not to mention the writing material.
Bonds have formed, however, in other areas. I can think of several people with whom I’ve connected and feel a similar yoking. Those connections, still in their infancy, will be tested. As I wrote previously in a more serious day (yesterday), I know what the Lord has shown me. I asked Him to show it to me. As much as I want to close my eyes and ignore the truth, I see it. The people in my life who know me well also know that one of the most triumphant things for me is conviction. On Sunday morning, when the pastor asks, “Who likes conviction,” I discover that my hand often is the only one raised. What happens here, though, is that I, feeling the pain of conviction, also can sense that overwhelming sense of necessity and growth that, if accepted properly, will free and renew. As a result, I tend to search for my fallibility in situations. I think in terms of what I’m doing wrong first. Maybe I’m not tolerant enough. Maybe I just come across as cold. Maybe I’m over thinking this.
But when I’ve asked the Lord to “show me” what I am supposed to see, and He does just that, and it breaks my heart because I am tolerant, and warm, and clear, I am uncomfortable. I want to attribute what I see to flaws in my vision. And that is where conviction sets in for me, Hallelujah. My fear to see the truth comes from my fear of breaking fragile bonds. If you don’t want to go deeper, stop reading now.
It occurred to me exactly where I took that wrong step, the one where I developed the fear and doubt to act and speak in the way the Spirit was guiding me. It was when I placed fellowship on a pedestal. When I began seeing my friendships as things that were conditional on my conformity. The word “bond” is not referred to often in a favorable light in Scripture. True, there is a bond of peace, but bonds are typically the opposite of what makes us free. I placed myself in bondage when I worried about losing fellowship.
Fellowship, which is admittedly important, is not the rock on which our freedom was founded. My freedom was founded and should remain grounded in the truth that Jesus, the Lord’s only begotten son, was given to me as a gift to loose me from the bonds that held me to the law. And the law led to death. Romans 5:20-21 says, “Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
I will say it again. The Pharisees are alive and well. To be tied down by a worry that friendships will end because of truth is as ridiculous as thinking that the friendship was ever real in the first place. If conditions are installed to prevent me from speaking the truth, in love, then I am guilty of quenching the Spirit. If I’ve lost friendship for exercising a gift of that same Spirit, then I’ve broken a bond. And I no longer see that as a bad thing.
I’m sick of saying nothing
Wyoming has sucked the literal and proverbial life out of me. The air here contains no moisture, which is fabulous for my hair but devastating for my brain because I have what I believe are anatomical similarities to a camel in that I’ve never really needed to drink water like normal people. However, I’ve discovered that when my body gets dehydrated, I get much grumpier than the grumpiness that just comes naturally to me. Unfortunately, it takes me an impressive amount of time to figure out solutions to physical ailments because I rarely think of any mood issue as directly related to the rest of my body.
As for the proverbial life, I’m not talking about depression. I’m talking about inspiration for a large element of what I love to do in ministry and in life. Sure, I like to cook, I like to write and I like to put address labels on the monthly newsletters (not actually, but I will smile while I do it). But I love to make people laugh at their humanity and realize there is definitely at least one person who deserves the mother-of-the-year award even more than they do.
However, in Wyoming nothing is funny. Not only have I discovered that Wyomingites don’t have senses of humor, but also they do not at all appreciate mine. This can be most adequately demonstrated by the reaction of a recent Bible study group’s reaction to my answer to “Does anyone have a preference for which bowling alley we meet at?” I know that many of you probably know what I said before I even type it, and it was not at all impulsive. It was a calculated and provocative response when I said, “Which one has the cheapest beer?”
At the bowling event itself, I told a leader of the church that I would feel like a real bowler if there were a just few pitchers of beer on the table.
“You like your beer, don’t you?” (Queue walking away scene, and no, I did not order a beer after that.)
Actually, I liked the joke more than I like beer. So did my poor husband. I’m almost positive I can’t say the same for anyone else. I’m not clueless, I assure you. I realize that I’m only funny to a certain breed of people, and most of the Christians who laugh at me are either filled with so much love that they can’t help it or were born again at a late enough stage in life to where they had to reinvent the definition of ”appropriate” in a way that could have involved them replacing profanity with the names of different game fish.
The point is, I’ve written several half blogs, published and quickly unpublished a few and then just dried up completely, uninspired and without words. Worry about whether this will “start me back at square one” with all of these new people has all but consumed me. No one should have to “prove” themselves worthy of welcome without reservation in the body of Christ. I do not speak in tongues, and Jesus has saved me. I will not sign a contract, and Jesus will use me. I will not prove myself worthy, because I am not. And the minute you think you are is when I believe the Lord will give you reproof.
I have been afraid to write, speak, discern, laugh and walk. One of my favorite Bible verses is Joshua 1:9. “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua was a servant to Moses. The Lord commanded him and Joshua obeyed.
I know the gifts He’s given me, and I know when my God lays something on my heart. I communicate with Him constantly, and I do not need permission from someone who looks through me to answer a call that He has placed in me. I don’t need approval from a leader, a pastor, an elder or any other hypocrite in order that I may serve the master we share. Never again will I try to “qualify” myself as being of use to the body or to Christ. And shame on those who think their gifts are greater.
How to move if you want to be miserable
It’s occurred to me that I haven’t done one of my lists of rules or steps to follow to be right lately, and I think it’s time. I kind of planned on doing a great inspirational guide on how to move to another state, but the nature of my move eliminated that possibility. I’m not “how-to” guide material. However, I do know how to eliminate the “how-not-to” steps.
As much as I would like to say I’ve done this right, I can’t. However, I can write a guide that will guarantee you fall into a spiraling cesspool of self-pity and bitterness, as well as take you fifteen steps backwards in your Christian walk. Don’t start worrying. Yes, I took fifteen steps backward, but that’s out of, like, 200 steps forward in the first place. The only things I’ve written in my state of bitterness were text messages to my poor husband and one hurried blog entry that will likely be deleted from the pending queue on my next computer cleaning day.
Starting at what initially appeared to be the worst thing about moving, I will say that if you want to be miserable from the get go, only label half of your boxes, pack what you want in them according to what fits and not by any kind of categorical process, and whatever you do, use at least half a roll of packing tape on each one. It took me six weeks to find a table cloth, and out of hurried necessity and in an effort to avoid injury, I damaged the dining room table’s surface significantly when I was throwing items from the attic onto it. In my defense, getting in and out of the attic was like contortionism and would have resulted in more serious misery than looking at a gash in the table if I chose to go in and out over and over.
Also, I’m trying to remember if I was playing some kind of trick on myself when I decided to put each family member’s Christmas stockings in separate, non-Christmas related boxes and I’m thinking I’ll wonder the same thing again when I’m trying to find them all around Christmastime because when unpacking is fragmented in that somethings go in the bedroom and some in the bathroom and some in the garbage, it’s hard to remember where you determined everything would go. The result is that I have three different places where anything could be.
As for the tape, a dear friend who helped me move lovingly stated that he had never before considered laminating boxes but that my choice to do so was interesting. Unpacking is hard enough, but I think I sold my husband’s razor knives at the rummage sale, and peeling tape off of boxes, especially when I used the tape as a sort of protectant in case the moving van leaked or the olive oil bottles broke, was (is) exhausting. My mom said to me, “Don’t be one of those people who say they’ll unpack later and still have boxes after a year.” I said, “Don’t worry. I won’t.” I didn’t know I was lying, but if you looked at all these boxes, you wouldn’t unpack them either.
The most important step to ensuring a completely miserable move is to make sure you expect to replace all of the great things where you’re from with great things where you’re going. The keyword is “replace.” It’s really hard to imagine this, I know, but I have a pretty stubborn nature. I also have tons of friends who have moved around a lot. To top it off, I despise advice. When you combine all of these things, you get something similar to a delicious looking parfait of chocolate ice cream and peanut butter that’s just been sneezed on by a complete stranger. The result is neither actually delicious or appetizing. Last week, I began to understand that concerned look on one friend’s face when I talked about how excited I was to move.
In reality, I don’t think anyone who’s ever moved from anywhere they loved has ever been excited to move. The trouble was, I hadn’t really ever made a committed move in my life. I moved to Florida once on a whim and to Washington for a more extended but equally thoughtless experience. As a person who is stuck rather firmly in the mud of independence, it didn’t exactly sink in immediately because I busied myself with tasks like unpacking and cleaning door frames, but once I realized I wasn’t going to be able to skip that week’s Bible study to go hang out with one of my best friends or plop down and completely disrupt the productivity of the church staff on Thursday afternoon by cracking borderline inappropriate jokes one hour before they were set to leave the office, it all hit me at once.
I felt alone and hopeless. I cried about anything. The day it hit me, I called and left a message for my pastor to call me back, and he did. The timing was horrible because I was at J.C. Penney to spend a gift card and was near tears already because I discovered that for some reason there was only one Liz Claiborne rack, and I love those jeans because I can buy them in a size smaller than I actually wear. I made my way to the nearest mall bench and sat and cried and talked to the only pastor I ever trusted about how nothing is the way I like it where I am, and I wanted to know how to make myself comfortable again. He gave me no advice on how to do that but prayed and comforted me, ensuring me that God wanted us here for something.
Fast forward a few weeks, and I had not only continued to try to re-create my home but also had resorted to answering people’s “How’s Wyoming” questions with, “Horrible. I hate it here and I want to come home.” So we went home for a visit. We filled our schedule and loved every minute we were home. These are my people. The ones who “get” me and love me anyway. Getting ready for church on Sunday morning, I started snapping at my poor husband, but only briefly. I told him I didn’t want to go back.
When I walked into the church, I was crying within one minute. Still in the “It’s horrible, I hate it there,” mentality, I felt like I just couldn’t tear myself away from my home again. Nonetheless, I did. I cried for the first 200 miles of the drive, as well as the last 50. It felt like my heart was broken, and I couldn’t understand why things had to work out the way they did. I wanted to rewind and do some things over to make this new world disappear.
I didn’t know it while I was in despair, but this seemingly negative experience was productive, and my heart was changing. While I cried, my mind kept returning to a talk that my pastor’s wife gave two years prior about blooming where we’re planted. The subject, at that time, didn’t pertain to me, but I knew that it did now. I was a newly transplanted tomato plant, taken from its warm, comfortable greenhouse and placed in a windy, untilled field. My roots were in distress, and to aid them, I was trying to do what I’d always done. The problem occurred exactly there.
I used to consider myself rather adept at undergoing change, but this change — an actual, physical change — was proving me incorrect. After a series of prayers, conversations with people I respect and love very much, and heavy meditation where I simply “waited” for the Spirit’s guidance, my attitude was forced to change. Revelations, which typically are enjoyable for me, came and weren’t enjoyable at all.
I was as happy, healthy and comfortable as I could be, and as I sat in that incubator, I stopped growing. I realized that God didn’t move me so I could re-create my circumstances. He moved me so I could change and grow. Why would He place me 500 miles from home to remain the same? The visit back home allowed me to gather some of my roots — not all of them — and start growing in this ugly field. The drive back hurt me because I realized that my love for my people hadn’t been — and never would be — less than when I left. But in the week after, I started feeling new roots growing. The drive from the grocery store has started to feel like a drive home. The view of the mountains just north has started to comfort me. And those new people have started, vaguely, to feel like they are mine.
So, keeping me chin up, as my mom told me to the day after I left again, has served me well. I’m open and learning what the Lord wants from me here. It’s not clear, but despite my tears, I am comforted.
Anger management, broken coffee mugs and high blood pressure
So some of you may remember one of my favorite self denigrating stories about a particularly angry time in my life. It didn’t last very long, and the whole scenario pretty much stinks to high heaven of hypocrisy and sardonicism. For those of you who have known me forever, you know that a short burst of anger is not only normal, but in some cases can be run together with other short bursts of anger, which sometimes gives a distinct illusion of a personality disorder. I won’t lie, I read the DSM-IV for fun and relaxation until the staff at Barnes and Noble took the comfortable chairs out of the store because they were tired of people falling asleep in them (I asked, and they said it was homeless people, which would have offended me, but I got the clear impression that the employee had seen a picture of me hanging near the punch-in clock with a note saying, “If this woman is seen in the store, please ask her how she’s doing every 10 minutes so her snoring doesn’t disturb other customers,” but I was too embarrassed to engage). I could easily be diagnosed with at least 80 percent of the disorders in that book, depending on what day the evaluation occurred.
I was thinking about the one particular episode in my life today because of a rather loud episode that happened after dinner in the kitchen. My husband and I have been taking a parenting class (Shut it. I realize that I’ve probably irreversibly damaged three-quarters of my children in some way already, but they’ll remember I tried), and it occurred to me that I had drastically changed my parenting style between each child. I have pictures of child 2 proudly displaying the dishes she had just finished cleaning. She was 4. Child 3 is 10, and she doesn’t know how to use the dishsoap bottle (proof I’m not a supermom?).
So I decided to start her off after dinner by asking her to unload the dishwasher and put the handwashed dishes away. Everything was moving swimmingly until she opened the other side of a cupboard where she’d shoved some bowls a little too aggressively and a ceramic coffee mug fell out. She hadn’t yet put the handwashed dishes away, and I handwash all the silverware, glass drinkware and pots and pans because the water here (I just moved) leaves an almost impervious film on everything. The heavy, two-cup ceramic mug fell on top of one of the glasses, knocking it to the floor. The sound brought the 7-year-old (I don’t even want to talk about how little responsibility I’ve given him) in from building a monster truck road outside.
I physically felt my blood pressure rise. For a fleeting second, I thought, “If she thinks she can just do something wrong to get out of doing it, she’s terribly mistaken!” I was in the same room, so I knew there was glass across the whole kitchen floor, but Child 3 was standing on her tippy-toes, which was the only way she avoided gashing her heels. Don’t judge me for my first fleeting thought, because this girl is smart. I knew that. She got it from me. But even before my concern for her feet kicked in all the way, I thought, “Why can’t I just keep my favorite coffee mug unbroken for once?” I wasn’t mad. I was slightly sad, but I almost instantly had to stifle laughter.
You see, before (and slightly after) I was saved, I couldn’t have cared less about a stupid coffee mug because as long as I had a case of beer in the fridge I’d wake up just fine. But after I met people, people who like coffee and tea and actually have long conversations about each, I took up the habits myself. Granted, I don’t talk about it because I drink generic coffee from a can and my tea has a warning label on it, as one nice friend pointed out to my as I was trying to feed it to the women’s Bible study group of which I was a part (for a very short time). But I’ve always had a favorite coffee/tea mug since I was a Christian.
The first one was lost by carelessness or sloth, depending on how you’d like to look at it. Back then, I had to drive my kids to school and generally left the house with my coffee so I wouldn’t endanger the other drivers on the road. Well, I seldom cleaned my car out, and my favorite coffee mug went missing for several days once. When I dropped the kids off at school one day, they told me that if I didn’t take a check in for the lunch lady, she was going to make them eat a moldy cheese sandwich. While I didn’t really believe them, I knew that I was being judged by the lunch lady and all the moms who ate lunch at the school with their children (gag), so I got out of the car, in the bus zone, I’m sure, to go and pay for lunches. Halfway to the door, I realized my purse remained in the car, and I turned to get it. I opened the passenger door and found my favorite mug, but it fell to the concrete from the Suburban floor and shattered. I believe it was pink and green and had some scripture taken completely out of context on it, with a saying at the bottom of the cup instructing me to stay in my pajamas all day. One down.
The second loss was definitely more tragic. Please keep in mind that I was saved by Jesus when this happened, and my salvation is proof that you, too, can have that same salvation no matter where you are in life. My poor husband and I were having it out about something, probably money or the way he raised his eyebrows when I almost sneezed so he must have thought it was a sigh and jumped to the conclusion that it was “that time again.” He had to go to work, and I was drinking coffee. He chose to “not engage” in the argument, which I took as code for getting the last word in only by shutting the door before I could say anything else. So I did what any otherwise rational woman would do and threw my coffee cup at the wall behind the door he went out.
I don’t know what hit me first. The revelation that I had just broken my favorite coffee mug, or that I had just thrown a full cup of coffee across the house. Probably the latter since the coffee was dripping down my back because of my follow through. When my husband came back in from the garage because he’d forgotten something, I’m pretty sure he expected more fight, but all I could really do then was laugh. That one was lost to rage.
So, this third broken mug I will always remember. I wasn’t mad. I can get another favorite mug. It helped me to apply a lesson I’d learned somewhere (this is code for this is something my husband told me but I just thought he was being a jerk). Nothing I have is worth damaging a relationship or anyone’s self-worth. I’d like to say I was listening all along, but really, the idea of anger has always intrigued me. Righteous anger, petty anger, rage, indignation, strife, etc. Some interpretations of the Bible will lead us to believe that it’s ok to be angry.
I don’t think so. I think it says we WILL BE angry, but not that it’s ok. It says in Ephesians to not let the sun go down on anger (I do not recommend The Message, which is not a Bible, for this verse). Christians say, “Anger is ok. Jesus got mad and threw the tables over in the temple. I say to them, “Dude, you know you’re not Jesus, right?”
Caring for the sick
Who says men are bigger babies when they’re sick? It’s simply not true, and I can prove it. Well, I could if I wasn’t too sick to do anything.
I rarely get sick. I say it’s because I don’t allow illness to overwhelm me because I’m too busy. Really it’s because I wash my hands obsessively and try not to touch other people. Speaking of, if people insist on teaching children to shake hands when they greet someone, is it possible to have them not suck on their fingers or carry complimentary hand sanitizer as well? Don’t think my kids are rude when they don’t shake your hand at church. Just say thank you.
I’m not entirely sure how I got sick, except that I did go to a Walmart and a Family Dollar (never, ever, ever again; it’s worse than the circus but more insulting and I’m not kidding) in the same week, so I’m almost positive this is a mutated version of two viruses that mated after meeting sometime shortly after those risky excursions. Now we all know that I’m not a fan of spiritualization of everything, but allow me to analyze this for what I felt God has been telling me. I don’t get sick. The last time I was ill, not counting the failure of an organ that is more optional than anything, was almost two years ago.
It began much like this illness. It turned to pneumonia after a week or so. I assumed it was allergies because I had stuff to do and I needed to rationalize spreading the contagion to others (don’t judge me, you’ve done it too). By the time it was pneumonia, it surely wasn’t contagious, but I actually had to stop. This time, I learned my lesson. I stopped. I laid around for two days, finishing an entire season of a prime time show that turned my stomach more than once. I’m still not 100 percent better, but those two days probably prevented the morph of the cold/flu to crippling advancements.
Sickness is something I have little understanding or tolerance for, but I have a great heart for overcoming, whether it’s mine or someone else’s. When my husband is sick, I’ve been known to be overbearing in my care for him. Not only will he get chicken broth and crackers, but he’ll get medicine, drink tea, be forced to sit in a steamy bathroom for 15 minutes, start a new vitamin regimen, be taken off of dairy, not get his heart rate up, etc. I’m sure it makes him feel like he’s in a hospital, and I doubt he appreciates my efforts because his life literally stops until he feels better.
The reason for my diligence is that I lack tolerance. I hate hearing complaints about sickness. I don’t like being around sick people, and I actually do not allow my sick family to come into contact with the rest of the household if I can help it. Now don’t think that I lock kids in a closet or anything, but their movement and allowance to touch things in the house is pretty restricted until the color returns to their cheeks. What I’m doing in my care is not caring. When I am around sick people, I’m afraid I’ll get sick too.
Expanding that a little, sickness has more reach than my immune system. While the method of delivery is not at all the same literally, the comparison can be made between spiritual and physiological sickness, I think. In the past four years or so, the company I kept changed dramatically. This is not a condemnation to the people who I still love and stopped spending my time with, so I don’t want it to be read as such. I just ended close associations with people who were sick. I make fun of people with a gift for spiritual discernment, which is probably evidence all by itself of a gift God gave me (no, self degradation is not a gift, but it’s definitely a clue).
I have chosen to surround myself with people who I see as spiritually healthy, which seems like great logic to most, I’m sure. The problem is, it takes time to see them, and when the spiritually sick outnumber (vastly) the healthy, I become discouraged and begin to get sick myself. My focus shifts, and strife enters. It sucks to see it and not have the boldness to say it, or even write it. Instead I get sick too. Instead I shake your hand even though I just watched you sneeze heartily into it. And everyone gets sicker.
Praying my way through this might be the answer, but I know that my prayer, at least this time, has to be accompanied by a movement. And I’m not divine. It will take more than one mover.
I believe sickness in THE church, not A church, happens when the movement stops. If more people are sick than are healthy or at least getting healthier, then the air becomes thick with disease. We know that the Bible says darkness can’t survive in light, so logic tells us that one spiritually healthy person should be able to affect an entire roomful of backsliders. However, if we are more rational, we could say that one spiritually healthy person could actually clear a room filled with darkness.
My belief is that holding on to tradition in the interest of human comfort combined with goals of worldly success, within any church, is an infection. The Pharisees are alive and well. They are conducting meetings to decide whether you are fit to be a church member based on your understanding of tradition and ritual. They are prying into your personal relationship with Jesus to look for proof of salvation. They are spending more time passing the plate than greeting their neighbor.
Take that as and where you must. John 3:19 says, “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.”
I’m not saying I’m light. In fact, I struggle being light. But I can say I can’t stand the stench of worldliness, which means I’m looking for light.
Why I’m not in a women’s Bible study
This one isn’t funny, and if you don’t like parenthetical snark or sardonic laughter, then don’t read this. Or of you are in love with any of the following: the word awesome, Beth Moore, Joyce Meyer, Elizabeth George or prayer chains.
About an hour ago and for the week prior, I was contemplating attending a Wednesday morning women’s Bible study. For those of you who know me personally, you probably are laughing right now. I love Jesus. I love the Bible. And I love women. I just don’t at all get along in women’s Bible studies, whether in a teaching or a learning position. I think it has something to do with the overuse of the word “awesome” and a tendency to quote Joyce Meyer’s notes.
It’s not that I don’t like Joyce Meyer (or Beth Moore or Elizabeth George ((not the murder mystery author, at least I don’t think so)), and actually I really don’t like Elizabeth George’s writing, which I like to call “a healthy cup of guilt and inadequacy” ((for more, see A Review of a Really Bad Book))). It’s the overspiritualization of everything and interpretational adamancy, combined with the gossip that takes the form of a women’s prayer chain that makes me run away. I’ve been to one women’s Bible study where the latter was not an issue, and it wasn’t an intensely popular study with most women. Also, I don’t read or study (without heavy criticism) trendy anything if I can help it.
Before I go much further, I probably ought to explain what I mean by prayer chain gossip. I don’t join prayer chains because I don’t agree with allowing just anyone to be “informed” of everyone’s prayer requests. I know from experience that a prayer request can turn very quickly into a gripe session about child support, perceived emotional abuse, complaints about coworkers or authority, or theological debates that lead to the overspiritualization of the choices of my breakfast foods (I had eggs, and you said legs, and those rhyme, so that means I should start walking). It’s the tendency for humanity to issue reason to circumstances. Sometimes I think this works, but in the case of prayer chains, it doesn’t ever work. The problem in a prayer chain is similar to the problems in marriage.
A friend once advised me to “stop trying to be my husband’s Holy Spirit.” Anyone who loves conviction knows what I’m talking about. I love it (not necessarily while it’s in progress, but a little later when I recognize it for what it was). The problem is, not everyone loves conviction, and we know this. So our tendency is to go to someone else (who doesn’t need the conviction in the first place) and spout off about how “if (the person needing that prayer) would just recognize his (insert sin here) for what it was doing, maybe he’d (get better, stop suffering, be saved for reals).” Gag. You’re not that person’s Holy Spirit either, and you couldn’t possibly know all the circumstances. You don’t even fully realize your own situation let alone someone else’s.
As a wife and mother, I find it challenging enough to not apply the above method to my family , but when someone I hardly know has a 20-minute prayer request that could easily be condensed to 30 seconds, I find it difficult to not put on my judge’s robe. I don’t want the full story. It makes it HARDER for me to pray for you. Quick scenario below, which may or may not have resemblance to a real, live situation:
Person 1: “Please pray for my brother because he got arrested for having his Siberian tiger on too long of a rope and it scratched the kneecap off of an idiot passing by. I mean, who doesn’t change their route when they see the Siberian tiger in the first place, even if it was wagging its tail and purring. Plus who assumes a tiger is nice or that a rope is actually designed to keep the fierce creature from reaching the public walkway? If you value your kneecaps or your life, go the other way. But please pray for justice to be served in a way that ensures my brother is not convicted for the mere fact that he loved his tiger so much and just wanted to give it a couple more feet to run. He just has a heart for these wild animals. Last year when the same kind of thing happened with the pterodactyl, he almost went to prison for having unregistered foreign creatures on his property. He wouldn’t make it in prison, and he’d probably die without his hobby of raising animals no one else is crazy enough to care for. I know it’s illegal, and I hope it doesn’t happen again, but he’s really sad, and I can’t stand to see him hurting. And I suppose pray for the idiot who walked by, too.”
Me, on the inside: Blank stare.
While exaggerated and significantly condensed, that’s how I feel during prayer requests. I can’t possibly whole-heartedly pray for someone after hearing a story like that. I am, after all, human.
Furthermore, the first time a guide book for a Bible study tells me to think of words to complete an acronym, I stop and put the book on the “free” table at church. It’s like telling me to clap or lift my hands during worship. It’s not going to happen (I can for sure tell you that if there is an “s” within the word I’m supposed to acronymize ((not a word, I’m sure)) that “stupid” is 100 percent of the time making the cut, and if you tell me to do something to praise the Lord in your way, I will do the opposite). Women who like acronyms usually also use the word awesome a lot (close your eyes and imagine the word being said, drug out like this: “aaawesommmmme,” and then try not to kick a puppy).
So, let’s talk about trends. I’ve called myself a hipster more than once, but it has nothing to do with the clothes I wear or the music I listen to. It has to do with influence. I have never turned on TBN or the 700 Club or listened to Chuck Smith, not because I think they are evil, but because when I look for revelation, inspiration, guidance, etc., I know that tuning into the world will not get me what I’m seeking, regardless of intent or religion. Last week in church, the pastor asked how many people are comfortable with silence. I immediately related on one level, which is within a household. But the level I feel like he was talking about was our prayer lives. Honestly, I have an easier time listening than speaking. I try to discern what God is saying more often than I ask God to move. So turning to the trends is difficult for me because trends are loud.
Beth Moore is noisy. Joyce Meyer is boisterous. Both encourage me to not listen. It’s like the 2-year-old who refuses to talk because his three older sisters are doing enough talking for all of them. Why should I pursue my own personal and independent and unique relationship with Jesus when I have all these people out there doing it for me? Pure and simple, these studies can lead to idol worship. My wall is immediately put up when someone begins a theological debate with “Yeah, well, (insert tv evangelist’s name here) says…” I stop listening. I don’t care what they said, nor do I care about convenient interpretations of Scripture. I’m not saying I’ve got it figured out. I’m just saying that ALL humans, even our pastors and teachers and deacons, are fallible, and I choose caution. I choose meditation and peace.
This is why (most) women’s “Bible” studies do not intrigue me — because they have minimal basis in the Bible. Because I’m “told” to pray for a need I’m neither empathetic nor sympathetic to. Because I’m afraid I’ll judge a church by its women’s group. Because Jesus is quite fond of me without my participation in this ritual. And mostly because I have a tendency to say all of the things above out loud, thereby stereotyping every woman I meet in those studies.
I don’t go because I love the Bible, I love Jesus, and I love other women. And that’s how I show it.
First impressions, Pavillion’s water and why I am so darn happy
It’s difficult to decide where to begin when I’ve taken what seems to many, including me, like a “break,” and at the same time gone through a complete upheaval in life. So many disturbingly hysterical things have taken place that I don’t know which takes precedence. Do I talk about the high school counselor who didn’t find me at all funny? Or the physician’s assistant who I unintentionally reduced to tears? Or the pastor who, when I compared his wardrobe choices to those of our former pastor, just moved on in the conversation, but not without a completely perplexed look in his eyes? Or do I discuss my first impressions, those that this brand new culture had on me?
How about none of it?
First, I’ll say that I was excited to move to Wyoming because I will gladly admit that I genuinely prefer the company of staunch Republicans. I know that many of my friends and family are wondering now if I ever really liked them, and the answer is, “Yes, I like you. However, I feel like I have to censor any conversation that I have with you because I am of the firm belief that anyone over the age of 35 who is a Democrat is probably also clinically insane (not my words, but I found them wise), and therefore, when I don’t hear from you for weeks, or you call me ‘skewed,’ I know I must have forgotten who I was talking to for a minute and said something directly instead of dancing around a sensitive subject.”
Anyway, I don’t know if I’ve seen or met any Democrats here, but the dynamic is such that I probably wouldn’t know it if I did because they are probably reserved about talking about their political views. Even the newspaper, which I had serious loyalty issues in subscribing to, has a bit of a different take on everything than I am accustomed to seeing from mainstream media. Tell the truth. When you think of Wyoming, you think of poisoned water, right? Well, don’t. While I’m not convinced that the water here is as good as the water I drank for 36 years in my hometown, I also don’t buy the whole “fracking is poisoning the water” routine, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that my poor husband’s job is on a fracking crew.
I know these things. A) That media sensationalization is real and rampant; and B) That most journalists are Democrats and therefore unable to separate their nonsensical and hypocritical viewpoints (excuse me, but how many of your precious trees did you kill to make sure you printed that article demonizing the logging industry when you could have easily put it online AND added the fact that they planted 30 trees for every newspaper you just printed) from their work. I would totally drive to Pavillion and drink the water straight from the tap.
While I experienced great difficulty, at least initially, in fully grasping the conservative culture I was living in, a weekend headline in the paper highlighting an upcoming legislative vote (which, I might add, appeared to be an easy pass) for Wyoming to print its own currency and buy an aircraft carrier, just in case (of another term or apocalypse?), brought me to the point where I am now. I’m not entirely sure where an aircraft carrier would be placed, but I do know that the wind here would allow for a bunch of kites to be strapped to it and for it to be stored in the sky indefinitely.
Which brings me to another point. The wind. There is a stupid rumor circulating around Great Falls, Montana, that it is the windiest city in the U.S. It’s not. It’s windier here in Casper. It’s windy to the point where they don’t really know what a mosquito is, I’m told. My poor husband (for an explanation on why I call him this, please refer to previous blogs entries that indicate marital content, such as “Turns Out I’m a Drippy Faucet”) brought me some earplugs one day, and I immediately posted on Facebook that it was the best Valentine’s Day gift ever. However, I didn’t realize that it wasn’t the sound of wrestling or fighting children I was going to need to drown out. It was the sound of the wind trying to tear off the second story of the house all night. I’m not kidding. I had a great day on Sunday, and I don’t even know why because I hadn’t slept in two days because my dear husband (now you’ll see a tone change which will explain why I call him that) explained to me that the sound I was hearing was the wind hitting the outside wall at an angle that was causing stress to occur on the truss. So, really, I’m listening to the wind try to knock the house down ON TOP OF ME (!!!) while I’m sleeping (or not sleeping because I’m truly concerned).
On a more serious note, I guess it can be said that I’m adjusting. I don’t always adjust to the new very well, and my husband informs me that I am loyal to the point of handicap. I sometimes feel like I need permission from him or someone else to form new relationships, to like a new environment or to simply start laying new roots. Both my poor husband and I were clear. We knew that God was bringing us somewhere else. It’s uncomfortable, and we put down deep roots elsewhere, making comparison inevitable and homesickness unavoidable. I sat on a bench in the mall one day crying, on the phone with the pastor from our home church, devastated that we hadn’t found that connection here right off the bat.
We all know that I am not known for my stellar first impressions or my patience, and in a move, these two characteristics I lack would be handy. But my pastor said to me, “Remember. To know Donna is to love Donna.” This reminded me of how terribly long it took for me to form any relationships even within my comfort zone, and it reminded me of how it happened at all.
The walls that Jesus tore down, brick by brick, can be easily rebuilt by my own perceptions. It hurt me to leave the people I love, and I hadn’t, despite the warnings from those very people, noticed that I already had begun rebuilding that wall. Outwardly, it looks pitiful, by definition. Inwardly, it looks the same. I hadn’t realized it, but I was succumbing to despair.
Proverbs 17:22 says, “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” I was not doing myself or my family any favors by choosing to struggle. I say I was choosing it because I simply was. Prior to leaving Great Falls, I had heard our pastor talk about our circumstances and our decision to react to those we deemed unfavorable with a pitiful attitude or an open heart (not his exact words, but how I perceived the sermon later). I had done exactly what I thought I wouldn’t do after listening to a message like that. I was pitiful.
It’s only been a couple of days since I decided to “get up” (Jesus’s words), stop whining and start listening to what I’m supposed to be doing here. In the meantime, I will operate with a cheerful heart, so as to not cause stumbling for those I come into contact with because the relationships I want to develop here I hope to ones built on joy and cheer and not on pity and despair.
Settling in and taking over
Don’t be misled by the title. I humbly realize that it’s entirely (well not entirely) impossible for me to move in and have this whole municipality running in exactly the order I need it to run in order for my requirement for the smoothest transition time possible. No, I’m just talking about my home, or at the very least the dining room table.
For those of you who don’t know this (if you ever met me, talked to me for five minutes or volunteered for a project I was working on and didn’t figure it out, then I’d suggest you look honestly at your level of self-absorption because nothing could be more glaringly obvious), I’m sort of a control freak. Prior to attending a Sunday church service in Casper, I went ahead and joined a leadership series where I no doubt impressed all with my statement that I’m more of a dictator than a leader, just ask my kids.
My poor husband (I will continue to refer to him this way until I am fully sanctified or until death, whichever occurs first) had to move into the house we found in Casper two days before the kids and I arrived, and I only can imagine his anxiety about where to put his minimal groceries away. He experienced mock bachelorism for the previous 30 days, and his senses were not entirely there, if you ask me. To the left of the stove top, he put peanut butter and pretty much everything else, which was changed before the U-haul was even emptied.
And while it is important to have a functional kitchen, the take over I’m referring to is not at all aesthetic in nature. It’s the stuff behind closed doors that I’m just now grasping the reins on.
I packed our Montana house for more than two months, gradually accumulating boxes in place of furniture and activities for the children. However, I left the Wii out and told them to pack all their toys and the books they weren’t planning on reading before we moved. As a side note and a valuable piece of advice, I would recommend explaining this further to any 7-year-old to ensure he realized that this statement doesn’t mean he isn’t required to read because mine just thought it was all video game time for the final two weeks before the move. Anyway, big mistake.
Rules went out the window, and for the past 10 days, I’ve watched what I’m going to forever in my mind refer to as homarchy. Rules broken either because of the excitement of a new house or because of my dismissiveness for the month prior to the move include, but are not limited to: running in the house, hide-and-seek in the house, screaming in the house, talking to me through the bathroom door, playing video games or watching television before cleaning rooms, bedtime whenever the notion strikes, etc.
Three days after we moved in, I put a screeching (literally) halt to the talking to me through the bathroom door rule only to open the door and find the 10-year-old standing less than 2 inches from the door. Worse.
Just yesterday I stood on one side of the breakfast bar explaining not-so-sweetly to the children that the time for complete and utter chaos had come to a close and life was back on (although I’m sure they think of it more as an end, and that could have been because somewhere in my statement I may have used the words “It stops now!”). In reality, I caused this. By relaxing the rules, even temporarily, and delaying the onset of structure in their lives in an attempt to allow an “adjustment period,” I had created my own meltdown.
Honestly, the kids are adjusting much better than I am. After all, they only lived in Montana for a decade or less, depending on their ages. I lived there my entire 36 years, and as I told someone sitting behind me in church before I left (yes, during service), “It took me 36 years to make the four friends I have, and now I have to move!”
Which brings me to another point — one a little more somber. One person exclaimed the benefits of “starting over” and becoming that person I’d always wanted to be simply because of a location change. In a sense, I’ve done that. For instance, I’ve brushed my hair every day since I’ve been here, and I’m trying to never throw away leftovers. However, someone else once said, “No matter where you are, there you are.” But I don’t know if I really acknowledged who I was until I was confronted about how I tend to self degrade.
A dear, dear friend admonished me before I moved for calling myself “brash.” Her admonishment was gentle and loving and heartfelt to the point of tears. She re-explained to me the concept of transformation, and I’m so grateful that she did. I had excepted myself from this wonder of salvation. This big burden of brashness and stony coldness was one that I had continued to carry even after it was no longer true. My heart, although still mine, is in the possession of Jesus, my Savior, who changes it, sometimes a little valve at a time and sometimes a whole heaping atrium at a time. I’ve softened, and my friend said she would call me “hospitable.”
It was a shocking revelation to me that I made a positive impact on her and therefore others. And it made me think deeper into the concept of a new start. I’ve been given that blessing, and my only move toward a new beginning will be to accept that gift with a grateful and fervent heart. To drop who I thought I was and be who God made me. I probably still won’t live up to the expectations of the world, but I will make every move I see to glorify God with my behavior.
Donna Evaro
