Hope

Don’t Despair! The Monster Scaring You Is Only February!

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

Head in hands again. Trying to shut out the noise. The kids with their needs swirling around me.

We are homeschooling in February.

I sat on the couch, overwhelm consuming me. Do I declare (another) fun day and take the kids cross-country skiing?

Should we call all our homeschooling friends and organize (another) hockey party on the free outdoor ice rink?

Do I give them as much “independent work” as I can and try to tackle the mess of stuff in the basement, the pile that seems to have acquired a life of its own and that roars at me as I pass like a Yeti in the basement?

Or do I confront the emotions in my heart that are spilling out onto the couch next to me, a mess I am trying to hide but that is emerging despite my best efforts to pretend I am confidently steering this homeschooling ship?

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to hide behind the fun. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the fact that our home is so disorganized that we can no longer find pencils to do our math. Or that no one cares. “I like using a green pencil crayon for math, Mommy!” she asserts.

She is not trying to make me feel better. She is genuinely happy. Her needs are met.

And mine?

“I’m not worried about the kids,” my husband would assert. “I’m worried about you.”

So I offer you tea and a listening ear, dear homeschooling Mom and Dad, and ask:

How are you?

Not how are your kids?

Not how is the state of your home (We know it’s a disaster. You homeschool!)

How are you?

People who suppress feelings experience less positive and more negative emotions.

APA PsycNet

And then your tears, and your head in hands, and I put my arm around you to comfort you.

Husbands, put on a helmet first and then TRY asking your wives if PMS is real.

You know the answer, or you will find out soon enough.

Similarly, the homeschooling in February blues is real.

I want to propose (shout out to Mystie Winckler for the essence of this paragraph’s wisdom!) that the path we walk through the regular monthly cycling of our emotions gives us a hint for how we walk through the annual cycling of our feelings during the homeschooling year.

And February is hard.

Now, I know that you don’t have time for a dissertation. Your child is pulling your arm already, something is burning on the stove, and you have dog vomit to clean up, but you need some help. Now.

Don’t quit homeschooling in February.

If you take the advice of the sentence above, then go! Go and get through the day! Well done, Mom and Dad!

If you have another 5 minutes, here is an explanation for the statement above.

When sailors would navigate using the stars, how would they do it? They would choose their course on a cloudless, moonlit night. “I am heading north-east,” they would assert, and set their hearts and sails in that direction.

On a cloudy night, when the stars were invisible, and they didn’t know which way to go, what did they do?

They kept sailing in the same direction.

February, head in our hands month, is a cloudy night, desolation.

Ignatius describes desolation as “. . . darkness of soul, . . . the unquiet of different agitations and temptations, . . . when one finds oneself . . . as if separated from his Creator and Lord.” . . .

Ignatius warns us that someone in desolation should never change an important decision . . . made when they were in a state of consolation.

The Jesuit Post

Keep sailing in the same direction.

How do you do it? How do you survive one more day, you ask desperately? I’ll give you some tips, held like cherished gems in my pocket from long years on the sea, at another time, friend, because our time together has ended for today.

But oh, desolation is an opportunity for our growth.

May you reach your destination.

However, you may not end up where you thought you were sailing.

That is His way.

It’s The Women Who Suffer In A Culture That Promotes Abortion

/ Lori Lawe / 1 Comment

We don’t see them, the women, head in hands, often alone in their apartments, suffering.

They suffer through the choice of, the procedure of, and the after-effects of their abortions. We don’t see them for a few days, but that is nothing new. We don’t see many friends or family members for a few days.

We didn’t notice.

We don’t hear them either, crying into their pillows, muffling their grief.

We don’t know their stories because it is not easy for them to speak about. The pain lies hidden deep in their hearts, placated by medication in the terrible times. Who wants to dive into the depths of the human heart and open Pandora’s box of pain that lies within?

We didn’t notice their cries because much pain emerges silently.

What TRULY is best for the woman?

What if we set aside the unwanted child within her womb, the man who is in or out of her life, societal expectations – everything? Let’s set everything aside and focus on the woman.

On her.

On you.

I see you. I feel your pain, though I may not know you. I hear you crying, though I have never met you.

I have an inkling of the pain that you feel because I feel it, too, in a different sort of way.

I am an adoptive parent.

I also, like you, have cried the anguished tears of a woman who is not in control of the timing of when a child enters her life. I too have shed tears for the unfulfilled longings of my heart, though different from yours.

I, too, have suffered grief because of the child.

But this is not about me.

This is about you.

Should you be the one to pay for the abortion procedure, handing over your savings to get it done?

What about the man?

Would a sperm say to a father, ‘Who gave you permission to use me to make a baby?’

The Message

He pockets his savings, perhaps buying more beers for his friends. He is still drinking, having fun, eyeing up the next woman at the bar while you are at home, alone, suffering through the painful side effects of aborting his child.

Is this the best we can do for women’s rights?

In ancient Greek culture, women were considered more powerful than men.

Some were worshipped as Greek goddesses. Temple prostitution was an honored position within Greek society, unlike cultural stigmas towards prostitution today. The cultural mindset was that women can control their sex drives more successfully than men.

Women have control over something men desperately want.

When sex is withheld for a season, the power balance shifts to favor women.

What if, and I am only asking the question, withholding sex from a man until he promises to be by her side if a baby comes is the best way to honor women?*

Here’s another thing we know. . . . Sexual activity is not a life-threatening proposition for guys. Neither are the consequences. We won’t die if we get our partner pregnant. We don’t lactate once she gives birth. Males are really off the hook. We engage in the same reproductive activity [as females] but there are great differences in what each has to lose when they engage in it.

Your Best Brain by John J. Medina – Lecture 18: Sex And Your Brain

Women, are we ready to assert our power?

Then let’s say “no” except to the honorable man who has already asked us to marry him*.

This is the first step towards truly honoring, valuing, and assuring women’s rights.

Use your superpower! Assert your strength and the dignity, rights, and freedom of women. Don’t hand him your future suffering, both physically and emotionally, for free.

Value the woman.

Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for?

The Message

Lord, raise women who are okay with standing alone. Thank You for restoring us to wholeness, no matter where we have travelled, Jesus. After a moment of quiet, consider asking Holy Spirit, “How do you see me?”

Blogpost Footnotes

*And no, I am not referring to the teen boy who buys $20 cubic zirconia “Promise Rings” in bulk from Walmart and hands them out to myriad teen girls, seeking his reward. The promise rests on the character of the promise-er.

This post is part of our Say-It-Again On Friday series.

The Despair Of February Is Our Ticket To True Homeschooling Freedom

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

I was slipping into the dark abyss.

My fingernails scratched the side of the dark tube I was falling. I was trying to hold on, to stop myself from falling. Nothing worked.

I fell faster and further and landed with a painful thump. Sitting in the dirt, I tried to take stock of my situation to figure out what to do next.

I couldn’t climb my way out of this pit. Bits of dirt fell out of the walls when I tried to pull myself up with my own strength,

I sat down again, discouraged.

What do I do next?

I sat on the couch, the kids running in circles around me. The dog followed them, stopping to eat a puzzle piece that had fallen on the ground.

“He’ll throw that up later,” I thought, but I stayed where I was, slouched on the couch, watching the commotion.

How had homeschooling become so complicated?

Welcome to February.

And it is to you, dear homeschooling parent, that I send out a blimp in the sky, something that you will notice amidst the noise. “What is that?” you wonder, looking up, up at some shape you can barely recognize high up in the sky.

The dishes have piled up again, and secretly, you find yourself wondering more and more often what it would feel like to don work clothes and to wave “Goodbye!” to the kids each morning with a smile and a wave. Next year? (The rest of THIS homeschooling year . . . ? What WOULD that be like . . . ) You are lost in a daydream again.

We try to shake ourselves awake. We walk to the next room in a half-hearted effort to clean up. The piles of half used, forgotten curriculum mocks you from every room you pass. “Ha! You didn’t finish me either!” it yells at you.

The kids are happy, delighted. They kiss you as they soar past, trying out a new paper airplane they designed, as they throw it, again, from the top of the stairs, laughing.

They stop to offer you a kiss. “Do you want a cup of water?” they ask sweetly, wanting, in their limited way, to help you. They have a look of concern in their eyes. They know that mommy doesn’t feel “regular” today. These are good kids.

But even they can’t help you climb out of your pit.

The pull of February drowns out their voices. Their words sound muffled, far away.

The martini that you have never actually drunk but that entices you as a far-off reward for someday doesn’t cut it today.

Dirt falls from the side of the walls and won’t hold your weight when you try pulling yourself out of this pit with a promised martini.

Maybe you can wait here, sit in your despair until spring, you wonder?

You look up at the top of the pit. “How can the light reach way, way down here?” you wonder.

I will be writing a series of posts, dear homeschooling parent, to help you through the February blues.

In February, the long winter stretches out with no Christmas in sight. The rest of the school year seems long, long away.

If you haven’t felt discouraged yet, you probably will.

(Shh… God is holding a ticket out of here for you. Do you see Him? But the only way out of this pit is if He transforms you so you have wings. Are you ready to fly?)

Stay tuned to this series of posts to help you:

(1) Not be surprised at the February homeschooling blues when they knock at your door and come in uninvited,

(2) Allow God to transform YOU (not your kids), and

(3) Better align with a way to homeschool that puts a smile back on your face.

Are you ready to soar?

He energizes those who get tired,
gives fresh strength to dropouts.

The Message

The “Unwanted” Baby Is Wanted By All?

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

I’m wiping the tears from my eyes again.

It was movie and popcorn night. We watched UnPlanned, the astonishing, true story of Planned Parenthood Director Abby Johnson’s journey across the line from Choice to Life.

We were all undone.

As my tiny and insignificant contribution to this whirlwind topic of our day, like a feather battling a windstorm, I include below a poem I wrote.

May our prayers reach the ear of God, that the prevailing cultural winds would change direction and blow the feather toward God again and again and again . . . we pray.

Lord, have mercy on us, all of us, for we are a sinful people.

And may we pause to consider the following:

Simon Peter [who] . . . fell to his knees before Jesus. “Master, leave. I’m a sinner and can’t handle this holiness. Leave me to myself.”

The Message

and

If . . . my people, my God-defined people, respond by humbling themselves, praying, seeking my presence, and turning their backs on their wicked lives, I’ll be there ready for you: I’ll listen from heaven, forgive their sins, and restore their land to health.

The Message

They Say She’s Not Wanted

They say she’s not wanted in this world.

Yet I’ve seen her mom, belly swelled in mystical expectation, nervously meeting prospective adoptive parents for the first time. Tears flowed on all sides at the first introduction, bonded somehow at the initial meeting. I’ve chatted with her mom many times while she lay curled up in the womb.

My heart broke for her mom because she could not raise her now.

I met her birth grandma and cried with her over the expectation of the first grandchild in the family.

The fulfillment of a grandmother’s dreams was not that the child would be whisked from her arms before they would know each other well. “You take good care of her,” the grandmother whispered to the adoptive mother through tears.

I’ve met her birth father.

A boy-man, wearing the tough guy mask in front of his friends and family. I sat with him while he, head in hand, sobbed a mountain of anguished tears, knowing that her birth mom could not stay with him forever and be the family unit that he dreamed of.

I’ve cried with him too.

I’ve also met them – the crowds of families, with polished faces and pages full of dreams in shiny dossiers, cartwheeling over each other in efforts to impress. They plead, “Please pick us. We want her. We want to be her family. Oh, won’t you please pick us?”

I know them because I was also a member of one of those families. And our family was chosen. And oh, how the aching in our hearts was finally filled with love and gratitude for this cherished life.

Thank you, birth mothers, birth fathers, and birth grandparents, for standing firm in love and truth, regardless of the shifting sand of popular opinions.

We honor you, and we love you.

Thank you for placing your child in the arms of a family who will love and care for her.

Thank you for allowing this child to thrive in the healing love of all of us in her extended birth families and her extended adoptive family.

And we share a secret, don’t we?

Even if they don’t know it, we know these children are wanted by MORE people than can be counted.

To Lose Weight, DON’T Focus On Food – Focus On Identity (Healthy Habits Post 10)

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

I threw away the diet books in a fit of frustration.

I failed.

Again.

HOW is it possible that EVERY time I start to diet, I GAIN weight?

True story.

I don’t even lose weight for a while and THEN gain weight.

My body pushes the pedal to the floor, green light ahead, and helps me put on the pounds without meandering through the territory of “thinner me” first.

“Thanks a lot”, I thought. My body is too smart for me. I had to find another angle.

HOW can I win this battle of the bulge with a body that bulges whenever I FOCUS on my food, I wondered?

I was focusing on the wrong thing.

That’s when I learned about “identity.”

“Identity” and related terms were some of the most frequently Googled words in 2023. Yet I think it’s safe to say that few of us clearly understand what EXACTLY identity IS or HOW it applies to ME.

IDENTITY was the smoking gun that allowed me to keep wrestling (granted, I am still in the ring) with the battle of the bulge in my own life.

Here’s the secret. Lean in close.

Is no one looking? Ok . . . (shh… what will it take for us to BELIEVE ourselves that we are the KIND OF PERSON WHO IS FIT?).

Then we do that – end of discussion.

I’ll explain to you the FORM of what exactly this looks like in my own life. Then, if you’re still interested, I can explain WHY this works.

I will first discuss a CAR (the FORM) and then an ENGINE (the WHY) to convert the above paragraph to an analogy.

The CAR I drive is reliable and gets me where I need to go. These are the actions I take to stay fit. The ENGINE of the car, the fire and the pistons that make the wheels go around are found in digging into beliefs about identity.

In the analogy above, I drive a 20-year-old Toyota. In real life, this is the car my Grandpa gave me when he could no longer drive. He scratched and bashed this car from headlights to tail lights from failing vision and judgment, but it was a VERY reliable car because he didn’t have far to go each day.

This Toyota is kind of like me. I care that I can get from here to there and reliably do my errands. My goal, as much as I can control, is to be fit enough to have a reliable body that gets me where I need to go.

Being a healthy weight is not about image but about avoiding pain associated with obesity, if possible, in other words.

So how do we do that?

I focus on what I must do to TRICK MYSELF INTO BELIEVING I AM A FIT PERSON.

Sometimes I do a Triathlon. Sometimes, I complete P90X, and related challenging workout programs. Once, I bought equipment and lessons to learn to skate ski.

I did THE KIND OF THINGS THAT FIT PEOPLE do.

I pretended to be someone else, in other words.

And then I thought, “Fit people eat green smoothies in the morning, so BECAUSE I AM A FIT PERSON, I will do that too.”

And so now we’re talking about the engine of the car.

I naturally ate MORE OFTEN like a fit person because I BELIEVED that I was a fit person.

It was all about identity.

Something else about identity?

Jesus cared a lot about identity.

We have a record of six times that Jesus asked something along the lines of, “Who do (the people/ the crowds/ you) say I am?“

Identity is the A-Z of what drives your car in life.

What we believe about the identity of Jesus is the steering wheel in the car He is riding.

What we believe about His identity determines whether the car of God is coming toward us, bearing the overwhelming love of the Spirit and all of the inheritance that adoption by a King offers. Or whether we are hitchhiking and miss the car of God again.

‘May it be the real I who speaks. May it be the real Thou that I speak to.’

C. S. Lewis – Letters to Malcolm

God, help us to see ourselves using the glasses You use to look at us. And may we, by Your Spirit, grow into Your best vision for us and for our lives, we pray.

How To Get God to Like You

/ Lori Lawe / 1 Comment

He looked at me intently, his eyebrows furrowed.

“Do you think I am going to hell?”

His question was honest, open, curious. This wasn’t a loaded question, as if he had a pile of ready-made snowballs next to him, ready to fire, whatever the response.

He just wanted to know what I thought.

Our mutual friend jumped between us, trying to get his attention. His eyes remained fixed in my direction while she spoke.

She confidently asserted her opinion.

He was half listening, and when she finished, he re-directed his question, quietly, back in my direction.

“But what do you think?”

“I think that God considers the revelation that we have received, compared to the revelation that we currently hold.”

His eyebrows furrowed further.

Let me explain.

Some of us have received more revelation, truth, or light -we’ll use the term revelation – of God than others. The child of the pastor for example, who has been raised in an atmosphere of grace and forgiveness will have more revelation than the child who was tossed aside by his parents for another cocaine hit.

However, if that same child who was born into a Christian family had parents who secretly abused him emotionally, spiritually, or physically, that child might have even less revelation than the child of the cocaine addict.

So this revelation is not something that we can see or measure in others. Only God knows the amount of true revelation that each one has received in our lifetimes.

And- how much of this revelation that we have received, are we still carrying? This is the second question that is equally important.

Have we held this revelation like water held in a hand with fingers spread apart? Has the revelation dripped away? Did we toss aside what we have received, including the spiritual encounters of others that we have heard about?

Or have we treasured in our hearts, like Mary the mother of Jesus, the wondrous revelation that we have received?

Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself.

The Message

We are not to sit on our revelation from God like a bird, sitting on a clutch of eggs, waiting for a God moment to hatch. We are to hold up each egg, talk about it with others, and examine it in the light.

Is this egg, this revelation, a rotten egg? Is this an experience true to the person of Jesus, or did another spew the words of Jesus while manipulating me for their own advantage?

And then, the biggest test of all, can we try a bite of the egg? We risk. We read a book. We go to breakfast at the church with a friend who seems genuine in her faith. We ask a question, openly, honestly, and genuinely curious about the other’s response, like my friend did.

What did the food taste like at the church breakfast? Do we feel sick after eating it? Maybe that egg was rotten.

But the point is, that we DID something. We went out on a limb and took a risk to discover truth about the revelation that we have received.

What is the next step in your spiritual journey? Is it time to stop sitting and start tasting?

Open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see – how good God is.

The Message

Oh, and if you taste and see, and are walking, in your abilities, in faithfulness, along the journey that God has given to you, following the clues as they come, then yes, you can be confidently assured that God likes you.

And I like you too.

And if we like you, why wouldn’t you like yourself?

This post is part of our Say-It-Again On Friday series, where we say it again, on Fridays!

We’re Overweight Because We Lack Organization Not Self-Control (Healthy Habits Post 8)

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

Hopefully, I’m organized enough to remember that I was writing a series of posts on a particular topic and then if I get distracted, come back at a later date and finish the series.

It happens more than I’d like to admit that I write a post, announce something I’ll talk about later and then completely forget that I ever wrote that.

In the last few posts, I took a break from my blogpost series about healthy habits. But today I remembered to . . . I mean . . . I AM writing about healthy habits.

It’s not that I didn’t WANT to finish the series of posts I am writing about healthy habits.

It’s just that I’m highly distractible.

What was I saying?

Anyway, this post is about how to be more organized and focused, so let’s get started!

I proved definitely in previous posts that we ACTUALLY:

  1. LOVE practicing annoying healthy habits
  2. LOVE drinking nothing but water
  3. LOVE becoming exhausted exercising
  4. LOVE eating green food
  5. LOVE starving ourselves
  6. LOVE to avoid dessert (future blog post, if I remember)

So by now, we have finally figured out (or tricked ourselves into believing) that these healthy habits are awesome.

How we DO these habits, the hard work of rolling up our sleeves and getting them done is the next part.

But that’s not as hard now, because if we WANT to do something, then getting up enough willpower to prep and do the work so we can DO these habits is the easy part. 

Being successful in life is kind of like being successful in homeschooling our kids, I think.

The main goal of a homeschooling parent is to structure school in such a way that the kid enjoys learning as much as possible. If a kid WANTS to do something we can stand back, and yeah, maybe even drink a martini by the pool for once, for real. (For about an hour, tops, but this time I’m telling the truth about martinis).

And it’s the same with motivating us. When we WANT to do something we can make it happen.

Sometimes we beat ourselves up for all the wrong reasons. We are annoyed at ourselves for having an unhealthy lunch, and we assume it must have something to do with self-control.

Organization is the real culprit.

Try spending two hours on the weekend preparing healthy food to make these healthy habits easier during the week.

Here is an example to get you started. Her methods have been transformational for me.

I’ve learned that if we put in that extra bit of effort to buy proper running shoes, it’s a lot easier to run the race. Similarly, if we put that little bit of effort into preparing healthy foods then success is inevitable.

We won’t go from couch potatoes to famous triathletes in one week, of course, but we will make progress, and progress is enough.

Jesus told them a story showing that it was necessary for them to pray consistently and never quit.

The Message

We can find a way, and we’re proud of ourselves, and we can give ourselves a little sticker on the wall or whatever it is that motivates us, particularly.

Yes! I do have a LOT of stickers! Why do you ask?

And whatever it takes, right?

When The Gift Box Opened On Christmas Day Is Empty

/ Lori Lawe / 4 Comments

Who isn’t excited to open a present?

Even for the most hardened of hearts, a brush with hope in an unopened present makes the soil of our hearts ready for the seed.

And what happens when we open the box and find nothing inside? We turn it over and examine it from another angle. Did we miss something? We take the box apart before finally setting it aside.

Disappointment.

Even for the happiest house with the most joyous children and (reasonably) healthy relationships, the best we can hope for on earth, this unrest arrives.

In the quiet, when the kids have disappeared upstairs to play, when the guests are quietly conversing, the emptiness arrives.

It appears as an ache, a heaviness that weighs us down a little. We mindlessly pick up the wrapping papers strewn around the room, our thoughts following us.

And then after we’ve had our fill of chocolate, and coffee, and cinnamon buns, and laughter, the sadness reawakens, the one that was slumbering within.

And so we pick up our sadness, gently. We scoop it up with our hands and lift our hands to God.

And this is our present, cherished as a pile of diamonds, that we offer our Father.

The tears in His eyes mirror our own, and His fingertips brush ours as He gently takes this gift from us.

Come, come, child. Come away with me, He beckons our heart.

We follow Him, the tears not yet erupted from the geyser within as we smile at the others and follow Him to a lonely place.

And in that place, perhaps the quiet of a room downstairs, by ourselves, He holds us as we cry. He dances with us as we celebrate. He comforts us as we plead with Him for His kingdom to come over some area of brokenness in our lives or our loved one’s lives.

And when the tears have been shed, and the comfort received, we return to them, to the family and friends.

And our gift has been opened, the one we were waiting for, the one that fills our hearts.

The gift of Him.

Merry Christmas, He says to you.

Did you open your gift this Christmas?

Jesus, teach us to pour out our heart as a gift to You.

As you listen to this song, consider talking to Holy Spirit, like talking to a friend over coffee. What do you most long to ask Jesus?

Ask Him.

And wait in the quiet stillness for a bit.

And may Your life be touched by a glimmer of the divine, which is a gift that when opened, contains everything you’ve been longing for.

Merry Christmas.

Let’s Rise Above The Christmas Shopping Frenzy To Like Ourselves Even More

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

It was like he pushed his boot through the book he wrote, the one I was reading, and kicked me in the rear. Ouch!

“What did you do that for?” I asked the book accusingly.

I had been sitting poolside, enjoying my martini as usual, when this incident occurred.

Let me explain. Ahem . . .

In the book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer he spoke of learning only recently about the extent and horror of modern-day slavery.

Yeah, I watched the movie Amazing Grace, recounting the true life story of John Newton, a slave ship owner turned religious covert, turned major influence on the abolitionist movement. I yawned, turning the page. I know about all that slavery stuff.

The next page mentioned enormous slave ships in Bangladesh and Vietnam right now. This was ringing a vague bell in the back of my mind somewhere. I sat up a little.

We all know something about modern day slavery but how curious had I allowed myself to become?

I had heard someone talk about this stuff. But when? And who? And the details?

It was a bit fuzzy.

I took another sip of my pina colada, did some research on my own, and then continued reading my book.

A few years years ago, I was shocked and deeply disturbed when I learned about the dark underbelly of globalization. I had no clue that a huge chunk of items in my home were made unjustly, if not with full on human trafficking and child labor.

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry – John Mark Comer

I slammed the book shut angrily. “You know, I’d rather just not know!” I yelled at the book, closed at my feet. The others lounging at the pool looked at me curiously.

I continued the rest of the conversation in my own brain, which is a much saner way to get mad at someone who doesn’t know you exist.

“And what am I supposed to do anyway?” I yelled at him accusingly. “I live in Canada, thousands of miles away! Am I going to row my oar boat to Burma and tell all those scary guys with guns to let their thousands of enslaved people go, the ones that bring them piles of cash every day?”

No.

So I readjust myself in my lounge chair again and pour myself a Bloody Mary. Time for a more mindless book. Time to relax. Maybe I should spend time browsing Amazon for cute shoes to get my mind off things.

But when I had emptied that drink and purchased a pile of cute heels in various shades of pink, I picked up the book “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry” again.

I’m Type A, and if I don’t get a checkmark beside “read X book,” then my self-esteem may plummet to who knows where.

I refilled my drink with a more potent brew, black coffee this time, and sat up a bit, ready to defend myself against an unexpected blow of the author’s hand smashing through the book.

. . . I realized a different outfit every day was kind of ridiculous. I was also made aware of the injustice of the fashion industry, which made buying new clothes a total pain in the neck. So I cut it in half and went down to three outfits per season… I love each outfit. They were . . . ethically made and environmentally sourced and for the first time I can ever remember, I have extra money in my clothing budget . . .

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry – John Mark Comer

Another bell was ringing somewhere. I, too, love to buy items that I know are ethically produced.

I almost only buy jewellery at 10,000 Villages or stores with a similar ethic. And check out the stuff I bought recently!* Beads are made from recycled Saris and support women artisans in India.

My favorite clothing store, besides Value Village, is Blue Sky, a fair-trade company.

But I also buy other stuff.

After reading about John Mark Comer’s choices, I felt like wearing a Blue Sky outfit the next day. Blue Sky from head to toe.

And I felt better about myself, more whole, more aligned to the values that God envelopes me with when He pours out His love on me.

I felt more like a bar of Christmas chocolate (because who doesn’t sometimes compare themselves to chocolate?) that is SOLID chocolate all the way through.

Biting into the kind of Christmas chocolate that is only a chocolate shell, that is hollow, is not quite as satisfying.

Maybe I want to buy people more SOLID chocolate bars this Christmas, more often, the kind that has the same taste all the way from beginning to end.

This feels symbolic of something important, something that makes me like myself even more.

Blogpost Footnotes

*I’m wearing clothes from Blue Sky in this photo. (Yes! I know you don’t care but I always wanted to be the kind of person who had to put a footnote telling others what kind of clothes I’m wearing in photos so I can feel important. Don’t shatter my illusions of grandeur!)

The Best Christmas Was The Most Painful Christmas

/ Lori Lawe / 3 Comments

I held my head in my hands, the non-physical pain consuming me, twisting my body to reflect my inner state.

The mother placed the baby in my arms and spoke of WHEN I took her home, enveloped her in our family. This baby was the gift that came no less miraculously than a child that emerges, astonishingly from one’s own womb. Except she traversed from God, through another’s womb, through the arms of another mother, into my arms.

And like a child ripped from her mother’s arms, she was taken from my arms and placed in another home.

We were pleased that the child would be taken care of, her needs met, thrive in a loving home.

And yet the pain in our hearts was only partially placated.

Every human soul carries its own pain within.

A loved one passes, an illness, a broken relationship, broken dreams, general ennui, desperation, hopelessness, despair. . . The waves of trouble that break over the human soul break us too, as our souls hit the rocks, making us bleed from the trials that have arrived on our doorstep, unbidden.

We open the door to today and the tidal wave of disappointment has arrived. We are left sitting on the floor alone in our world, unable to stand.

As we look around for a hand to help us up, something to hold onto, it seems hope is a long way away sometimes.

Can you see it?

I couldn’t either.

And then Christmas knocks on our door with the request to give to the needy, to distract ourselves with shallow merrymaking, to make ourselves sick with food that is sweet in the mouth and cancerous to the bones.

“Is this all there is?” we ask, our Santa hats adorning our heads in an effort to embrace the spirit of the season, our TV remote flipping from channel to channel, waxed chocolate at the fingertips.

Numb, again.

Another Christmas season has arrived, and we are numb.

No!

The old life is gone; a new life emerges!

The Message

That Christmas, the one when I could hardly breathe, I took off the old.

I crossed off the list of people that we were “supposed” to buy presents for. No more presents for friends, friend’s kids, extended family, parents, grandparents, my spouse. “And no presents for me,” I announced. We bought a few small gifts for a few children. And joy returned.

I crossed off the list the duty to make the Christmas treats I made every year, unthinkingly. I tried a few simple treats with a healthier spin. And joy returned.

I left the box of Christmas decorations in the basement unopened. When I finally gazed inside, I pulled out a few items that were handmade by friends or had sparked a particular delight, or a cherished memory. And joy returned.

I said no to every party, to the ones we were expected to attend that were too loud, had too much drinking, and too much shallow joy. We had a couple of quiet celebrations with a handful of friends or family, and good food. And joy returned.

No more expectations. The old has gone.

And the new life emerging?

And like the caterpillar that makes time for the quiet of the chrysalis, we too made time for the quiet.

– Time in the quiet morning hours, seeking my King

– Time for Christmas church services, as we sought to awaken our senses to the awe of the season through the life of the babe in a manger

– Time for a hug or a smile or an understanding look, more, more often from those around me

I spent time every evening that season with our little toddler at the outdoor skating rink. The one that is free.

When we fell, we would laugh and then sit quietly together for a moment noticing how the lights rimmed the rink, peering through the darkness. I could almost discern the light of the season through those lights.

And like the lights shining in the darkness, at the skating rink that is free, His free gift of love burst through my heart a little more often in the quiet mornings, in the moments of quiet at the worship services, in the quiet smiles of those whose lives I stumbled across.

And each smile was like gazing into another’s soul because I took the extra moment to see them, to know that they too, being human, have heart wounds. Can my smile, my love, be a drop of healing ointment to them, as theirs is to me?

And it was the best Christmas of my life.

As the song plays, consider asking God: How can any anticipated pain of this Christmas season be transformed into joy?