Identity

How To Avoid A Midlife Crisis – 3 Drops of Preventative Medicine

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

So we decided to take surfing lessons in our summer holidays this year.

I had never tried surfing on the ocean before, but as you know, I tried surfing for the first time behind a surf boat on a lake this summer.

As I was putting on my wetsuit for my first ocean surfing lesson yesterday, I was surprised that our group consisted of about two dozen teenagers, with my husband and me. We have kids their age. There were three parents nearby.

“I’m glad at least there are a few parents,” I whispered to my husband.

He nodded appreciatively. The parents didn’t suit up. They were there to watch.

“Should we be concerned about that?” my huband and I asked each other silently.

I wasn’t quite sure of the wisdom of this whole surfing gig, even without the fact that this seemed to be a teen activity. As you know, I spent a month this fall in bed with a back problem. Was this really wise?

I felt God whisper to try, to do less of the lesson, but to give it a go.

Also, the pain specialist said that often, people get stuck and won’t do anything new after their injury. Their backs freeze up, and they get stuck in cycles of every-more-limited mobility.

I don’t want to be constrained by fear.

The surfing lesson was super fun! Except I did have to ask one of the teens to help me carry my surfboard down to the beach because it was too heavy for me, and I didn’t want to explain about having a sore back last fall lest one of them ask, “Lady, what the heck are you doing in a surf lesson then???” But apart from the minor hiccups, it was great fun!

My husband said we should continue to do this kind of stuff, meaning that we should push ourselves outside of the limits that we set for ourselves, i.e. as non-surfers. I agree with his philosophy. Before the trip, he said, “This will be a great trip because we have aspirin!”

But this got me thinking about midlife crises.

The teen instructor asked us, “What made you want to get into surfing?”

“Trying to avoid a midlife crisis?” I offered.

But there may be some truth in expanding our horizons a little bit and in allowing ourselves some room to grow to avoid a midlife crisis.

So here are some thoughts on avoiding a midlife crisis:

  1. Here’s a picture of me surfing. I didn’t stand up on the thing, but it can’t be that much harder to stand when you’re surfing, can it? And then it’s not much of a jump to imagine myself as a surfer person with a few more (billion) hours at the beach under my belt. Sometimes, stretching our identities and ideas of who we are takes a bit of a physical challenge.
  2. I think many of us get fat in middle age because we obsess about constantly seeking comfort. Our lives of comfort become boring. For example, do you ever notice yourself dreaming about lunch right after breakfast? Or thinking about your afternoon sugar snack right after lunch? This could signify that our lives need a little spicing up instead of our menus.
  3. If we’re open to adventure, God has something new, friend, and exciting for each one of us. If we open our spiritual eyes and are willing be honest, thirsty and surrendered.

Why be satisfied with our old identities and a boring turkey sandwich when God offers us His world to soar into, friend?

Ready yet for adventure?

How To Make People Like And Listen To You!

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

The first step is to be cool.

You’ve always wanted to know how to be cool, too.

And I’ve figured out how to find our inner cool!

But why do you want to be cool? It’s essential to evaluate our motives. If we are cool, then people will like us! And by “like,” I mean “like” the things we say on social media! Then we can feel important!

And this is how we know we have significant lives!

For example, in the book Deep Work, Cal Newport says that social media is popular because we agree to certain codes of conduct with our friends that make us feel important! For example, we agree to like every inane and boring comment that our list of friends says, as long as they obey the unwritten rule to also like our inane, superficial and uninteresting comments.

Cal Newport states that if we wrote the comments on a blog that we write on social media, we would have precisely 0 readers.

In contrast, people read this blog! Last week, I learned that people from 24 countries have read this blog (Seriously!). Why this level of success, you ask?

1. One reason could be that I constantly write incredibly jaw-dropping, interesting facts. However, we all know that you laugh at me whenever I say something particularly insightful, so saying interesting things can’t be why you read this blog.

2. The unusual favour could be because God sometimes whispers between the words to mysteriously touch your soul, which should be the case for all of us who learn to listen to and follow Jesus- He speaks through our lives. (So no, I’m NOT saying I’m special (you Loser!) because we’re all losers -but this is good news!– remember?)

3. I am finding my inner cool. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I am cool quite yet, but perhaps that is a matter of opinion.

I prefer to assume it’s Option 3.

So yes, how do we find our inner cool? Good question. This way:

1. Think of things that cool people do!

2. Do those things.

3. Wait to be covered in cool, too!

Here’s an example from my own life recently.

1. Cool people surf.

2. So I tried surfing for the first time last week!

3. Now I’m waiting for the cool to glom itself onto me.

That hasn’t entirely seemed to happen yet. And in the photo above, for some reason, I don’t look quite as cool as those cool super dudes, but that must be the camera angle or something.

We drove to a surfing location recently, and I will have my first ocean surfing lesson soon. Wish me luck! I’ll let you know what I learn to share my insights into being cool with you!

I’m not sure exactly why, but I sense God hinting that this ancient verse below fits perfectly with today’s theme.

The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. 

The Message

My husband said that being cool is overrated. But since he’s married to me, obviously, being cool is a big part of our image! How is it possible he has never noticed that before?!

Anyway, you’re welcome!

Good luck!

The Astonishing Reason Why God Feels Far Away

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

And so a peony blossom suddenly appeared one morning in my untended flower garden.

Of course, God’s fingerprint can be found within every living thing, but was God’s Holy Spirit wind hovering over this flower, asking me to notice His hope through this blossom?

God made plants that I thought were dead or non-existent to bear beautiful blossoms three times this spring – amaryllis, lilac, and now this peony.

What was He saying? I sat up a little straighter in my seat, adjusted my tie in my executive-looking suit and sharpened my pencil, ready to hear the encouragement from God that I knew was my due. His reply knocked the legs out from under my chair, and I landed back on the floor where I belonged.

God showed me a picture of Him trying to give this peony to someone else because I wouldn’t take it.

The message was that I was receiving this gift from God not because I had something inherently unique in me. I was receiving this metaphorical flower because I was available. And the leeches of arrogance that had somehow covered me again had to be pulled off one by one, painstakingly, as I sat on the floor, having fallen off my stool of self-righteousness again.

God will use anyone available.

He doesn’t use little Jesus look-alikes. The ones who view themselves this way are so covered in leeches that we can’t see any reflections of the light of God in them anymore. I’m not special, He was reminding me.

Jesus is.

Would I follow him out of the barren garden and take this message that He was offering me in the form of a peony to others?

Because if not, he would offer this flower to another.

This thought felt a bit like a sucker punch to me, but one that would remind me to put away the robes of self-righteousness that I so cleverly fashioned and to dress myself again in the beautiful royal attire of the robes that He purchased for me, to put on the signet ring of the authority of his kingdom that he offers to each one of us should we have the humility to dress like a child of the king.

And now that I dress this way, will I get to work scrubbing the filth I encounter with living water? Jesus’ sleeves are rolled up, and we smile together as we rub shoulders, cleaning together and doing the work He has called me to join him in. Will I do it?

Will you?

What exactly I felt God calling me to will be discussed another time, but perhaps what doesn’t matter. It’s more about the yes. If I am available to follow Jesus on the journey He leads me on, we can expect a trail of blossoms to follow our lives.

Are you available when you hear Him whisper?

Have you time to find the royal princess shoes He gave you that are stuffed in your closet  behind so many other pairs of shoes it will take a bit of work to find them? Will you step down the rungs of the spiritual ladder of self-importance you’ve been climbing, too? Or if a cloud of self-hatred surrounds you, will you climb up the spiritual ladder to meet Jesus?

In either direction, He’s waiting there for us, ready to give us His love and the strength to complete our spiritual assignments if we remain shoulder-to-shoulder with Him.

Are you available for a cup of tea, a sharing of the heart, and the healing balm he offers? Come on! Let’s go!

And so the astonishing reason God feels far away is because we won’t receive the flower blossom He offers us.

By faith, Noah . . . acted on what he was told [by God]. . . As a result, Noah became intimate with God.

The Message

The astonishing surprise of Jesus is that he desperately wants us to follow Him on a journey to learn to garden with Him so that blossoms arrive unexpectedly in our world, but He doesn’t need us in particular. (It’s not about us.) Let’s not waste the opportunity.

Come on!

Let’s try flying!

God, help us to long to receive what You offer.

Hey Hoser! Know How To Avoid These 5 Disastrous Mistakes Before Getting Drunk (On God)!

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

If you’re wondering why I just called you a “Hoser,” read this post, which begins this discussion.

Now that we’re best friends because of the deep connection formed in the last blogpost, let’s talk about getting hosed. “Getting hosed” is a Canadian slang for “being drunk.”

Getting hosed on alcohol is overrated. Think about the mess of your vomit, which is what happened to me the one time I got drunk 32 years ago. Ew! Plus, there are all the other messes that the actions of getting drunk bring into our lives. No thanks!

Getting drunk on God is much cleaner. For some reason, the messes of our lives that we are currently standing on as we get drunk on God often seem to disappear. Plus the joy!

And so, how do we get drunk on God?

To discuss this, I am dipping my toe across the very well-defined line between the things of people and the things of God.

Now I know that I can be a bit irreverent. I know I have even laughed at myself once, and even in public (!) and on this blog! If I’m honest, I’ve laughed at you several times too, when you weren’t looking.

But today, I feel we are standing on holy ground, on something reverential, and vital that is imperative to understand. Joking doesn’t fit.

Seriously. This topic is so, so essential and has derailed so very many spiritual journeys.

Don’t let these five common mistakes derail your walk with God.

Related to the last post, five common mistakes associated with a felt experience of God, also sometimes called being drunk in the Spirit are:

(1) Being drunk by the Spirit doesn’t mean we are more mature than others who haven’t had this experience. Probably (my inference), it means we are less mature. Maybe we needed this experience to follow God more fully. Others, more mature than me, follow God wholeheartedly without this experience, perhaps. The goal is to recognize, as much as we are able, how much God loves us. If we’re doing this and following God and getting back up again quickly after we fall, then THAT is the definition of spiritual maturity.

(2) It’s imperative we understand how getting drunk on God is NOT like getting drunk on alcohol – We’re not in control of whether or not this experience happens to us. God is. Period. Full stop. For example, we can point you down the road to the Wizard Of Oz, but your experience with him or the shoes is between you and the magic. Remember Point #1.

(3) We seek God, NOT an experience OF God. If experiences are what we’re seeking, we’re a ship off course. All we need is God and the fullest understanding of His love for us on this side of the grass they’ll put our bodies in when our hearts stop. Experiences don’t matter. God matters. Our path is to pursue Him, not the experiences of Him.

(4) We don’t need to wait for God to DO anything TO us or FOR us before we can begin our journey towards Him. He’s already given up His life, so you’ll notice Him. He’s been standing at your door and knocking your entire life. Got time to open the door?

(5) Many of you have had profound spiritual experiences that you can’t nicely fit into your existing categories of understanding. These experiences are one of the ways Jesus wakes His beloved, His Sleeping Beauty. Don’t ignore the spiritual experiences you’ve seen in others or have had yourself, friend. Instead, let’s commit to noticing the clues, praying and seeking advice.

Ready, yet to wake up?

Join us, friend, for the adventure of a lifetime!

(I’m ready to finally get out of these pyjamas and into the clothes God purchased for me, too.)

How To Exercise When You Are A Busy Homeschooling Parent!

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

How do we become the kind of homeschooling parent with time to exercise?

Good question.

As discussed here and here, we throw our old identities of competent, non-butt-smelling parents out the window. Then, we think up a new plan that is dissonant with the parent we thought we would become. We embrace our inner loser.

And so, when I therefore stopped trying to be excellent as a homeschooling parent, the solution became apparent:

Let them rot their brains!

I decided, in my excess of homeschooling wisdom born from a recognition of my incompetencies, to begin each day by pouring into my children’s brains not challenging academic subjects, but . . . content dribbled from online devices straight into their beautiful little brains as they stared intently at screens!

I essentially bribed them.

“Look,” I said that morning as I pulled out their new to-do lists. “Do the stuff on the list this morning and then you will get to rot your brains with time online!” I promised them that big carrot held out tantalizingly close.

And so they finally got up, brushed their little teeth, put away the milk (one of their to-do items in that season), got dressed, combed their cute little hair, and then sat down to veg out on a device.

I let them watch anything they wanted from the RightNow Media app. I can trust what this company produces. And for a high-tech tip, if you triple-click your iPad or iPhone the kids can’t suddenly switch from the app of your choice to their favourite “Candy Plus Violence!” (or whatever) app.

We all won!

I got my sweat on downstairs on my elliptical machine for half an hour while they watched something that was loosely a morning character development program. (That was the rationale of the old “I must be an exceptional homeschooling parent” tiny voice remnant that still lurked in the recesses of my mind.) I got my sweat on, and the best thing was that I could find them all at 8:00 am, and they were ready to go!

When I sneakily put pencils into their hands in the last 10 seconds of their program, it was a transition they barely even noticed, from vegging out to doing math!

By 10:00 am every single day, I felt I should have won a homeschooling award. (I didn’t. No one cared. God does though!*)

So, lose your respectable homeschooling parent identity!

Let them rot their brains online early every morning instead!

You’ll feel amazing AFTER exercising! (Not before or during exercising – Let it be known). It feels pretty great (eventually) to shift identity, too. And so, how do we change our identity to the kind of parent who exercises?

1. All of our initial ideas about who we will become as homeschooling parents are kind of nut-so if we’re honest! Let’s toss those ideas with our huge egos and embrace mediocrity for our children instead! 

2. Our children may need their brains to rot a little so that this homeschooling journey is sustainable for all of us. So be it! 

3. Time for popcorn and a group educational video at 11:00 am, little family? We did something useful today! Let’s celebrate! We give each other a high five, and I have time for a visit with a homeschooling mom that afternoon. (While the kids build a mini-nuclear reactor or do whatever it is homeschooled kids do in their spare time). 

This homeschooling ship is on course!

When a mom’s long-term well-being matters EQUALLY as much as the (nut-so, unrealistic) goals we have for our children*, this homeschooling ship can sail into the future as long and as far as God calls us.

Well done, parents!

Love others as well as you love yourself

Jesus of Nazareth, a guy with tons of wisdom!

As you listen to this song below, consider asking the King of Kings, the guy who longs to pour love on you as your Father, what gifts He longs to put into the hands of His favourite child, you.

(Because we’re all His favourite child. Shhh… that’s God’s secret that He is whispering to you even now. Hear Him?)

Blogpost Footnotes

*That discussion is for next time – we are all works in progress!

The Best Solutions Suddenly Materialize When We Embrace Our Inner Loser!

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

The problem I couldn’t solve in that season was, “How do I, a VERY busy, mentally fragile (We’re around kids a LOT) homeschooling parent, find time to exercise?”

I did, eventually, find a solution to this problem by embracing my inner loser. I hope this problem-solving method helps you find solutions to your biggest problems, too! Here’s what happened, which is a continuation of this post.

And yes, I realize this last post was useless without an explanation, which I didn’t have time to provide.

Now, where was I? Ah yes. Smelling kid’s butts. After the low of us parents becoming butt-sniffers, we hit an even lower low several months later.

Butt-sniffing became our accidental family culture.

Our two-year-old, who loved to mimic our behaviour, stopped next to me as I sat on an office stool and then had a sniff before she carried on with her other little tasks. I looked at her, startled and then smiled lamely at my husband.

How did we become THAT family?*

The point is, as discussed last time, the person we become is not always the person we aspire to be.

Not only did I find it convenient to assume the identity of a butt-sniffing parent, but I also found it convenient to shirk the identity of a homeschooling parent who has all of her ducks in a row.

Which brings me, finally, to embracing our inner loser so we can become a homeschool parent who exercises.

Before I started on this homeschooling journey, I, like you if you homeschool, envisioned myself as a particular type of homeschooling parent. This is not the parent I eventually became. I’m okay with that now.

But the shaky ground of this identity incongruence was a roller coaster ride.

I envisioned myself nicely coifed and looking like my favourite public school teacher in Grade Three, Mrs. Chamberlain. Instead, I very quickly became that parent still wearing a house coat and curlers in my hair at 11:00 am, downing my fourth coffee, and trying to find the kids so I could corral them inside. We began the day with our “Homeschool Morning Routine”, which, for us was trying to find our books or pencils strewn around the house and yard the day before.

A new problem also emerged: I knew my inconvenient, neglected body needed to start exercising again.

I couldn’t even figure out how to encourage, bribe or command my children to put the milk away after they finished breakfast (In fact, I still haven’t figured that out with one of my teenagers). How would I keep these little ones on their homeschooling tasks while I left their side to exercise?

The feat seemed impossible.

Until my new identity as an incompetent homeschooling parent thought up a solution.

Realizing I was – ahem- a BIT of a (whisper) homeschooling loser, once I stopped trying so hard to be an exercise enthusiast, and embraced mediocrity, the solution to my problem was obvious!

I’ll tell you specifically what that is next time.**

The point is, let’s embrace our inner incompetence!

Perhaps the solutions to your problems can be found there, too!

Since we’ve . . . proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God . . . got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.

The Message

Once we accept our identities as people who are incompetent in so many ways, life suddenly gets much more manageable!

Time to stop trying so hard and embrace your inner loser, too?

You’re welcome!

Good luck!

Blogpost Footnotes

*See this post for a perfectly reasonable answer, thank you very much, okay?!

**Ah! I forgot to say something useful again!

Not Exercising? Try Shifting Identity To The Parent You Never Wanted To Become

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

How do we develop an exercise routine we can stick to as parents?

We must morph into the parents we never dreamed we’d become.

And I mean to become the parent we feared we would become.

I’ll explain.

It all started the day I started sniffing my kid’s butts.

When I was a well-coiffed, austere young woman in my twenties, I wrinkled up my nose at those homesteading women with several children crowding around them as they made cookies and managed a beehive simultaneously. “Isn’t that disgusting?” my sophisticated friends and I whispered, and we looked away in horror when one of these busy moms lifted her toddler, sniffed around their child’s middle for signs of a “Number two” and quickly set them back down on the floor again. This mom then happily continued stirring cookies, unpasteurized honey, or whatever she did all day.

“I would never do that butt-sniffing manoeuvre!”

When my children were toddlers, I gasped my way to a mom and toddler’s event one morning, my hair dishevelled, unmatched dirty clothing thrown over my and my toddler’s forms. I was clinging to a half-drunk coffee for dear life as I sat next to a fellow mom and empathized delightedly with her. We shared similar tales of near survival, of these miniature beings often holding us hostage to their need.

Suddenly, I remembered that I should probably check the older daughter, who was not yet fully toilet trained.

I grabbed my daughter’s arm and yanked her away from her friend. My daughter morphed from playing contentedly to screaming like a fire truck. I nearly lost the battle of the wills but managed to stuff her into the change-room, where I opened her training diaper and

. . . nothing.

There was nothing there.

When I returned to my friend, she was already chatting with another dishevelled woman, and for the rest of that “mom’s time,” my two toddlers had incessant needs again.

So it didn’t take long before I happily lifted my toddlers when they were playing contentedly, smelled their butts, and set them back down again with a wink and a nod.

I continued my coffee and well-deserved amiable chat with other homeschooling parent survivors,

My identity had shifted.

And similarly, what kind of identity shift do we need to become the kind of homeschooling parent who exercises?

1. We realize that if we are going to stay in this game long-haul we’ve got to surrender our pre-conceived ideas of success as defined by this culture, or worse, by our expectations of ourselves.

2. Our identity must be firmly linked to those who are societally undignified. We delight in our identity as children of the king, not as classy members of a specific culture (i.e. of any culture).

 3. We have fun, dancing with joy with our two-year-olds because we finally figured out that when we are happy, our little ones are too.

Throw off your chains, captive daughter . . . ! God says, “You were sold for nothing. You’re being bought back for nothing.”

The Message

And it was this change in perspective, from “culturally respectable” to “daughter of the King,” that led me to be the kind of parent who exercises regularly, as well.

The link between a shift in identity and exercise will be discussed another time.

I promise to say something useful sometime! That is if I remember to finish this blogpost series on exercising when homeschooling. This post was essential to set the foundation for when we will dive into the nitty-gritty of the shift in identity required to exercise while homeschooling young children.

For now, the first step is to stop trying to be “respectable”!

It doesn’t work anyway!

You’re welcome!

Good luck!

Spiritually Asleep Again? How To Wake Up And See

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

I woke up one morning and realized with a start that I was also alive spiritually. I poked myself to be sure I was awake. I was the same on the outside.

What had caused this inner transformation?

My circumstances were the same. I lived in the exact physical location as many years ago. But undoubtedly, something had shifted recently.

Like all births, the growth had begun unnoticed in the hidden places long before.

My story of waking up is a long story of twisting paths, walking in circles, and many falls.

Just like your spiritual story.

And I’m still walking.

(You? That’s good. Very good.)

This morning, my rear felt particularly sore from all the falls recently. Jesus held his hand to me again today, offering to help me get up.

I’ll start there.

I woke this morning in a cyclical funk created by my discouragement. I was spiralling down, ready to flush the new thing God had been stirring in my heart down the toilet of my despair again. Then I heard a quiet thought encouraging me.

You are in the fight of your life.

(Would I jump into the battle or claim immediate defeat, like usual, keeping my soul asleep?)

I was in a fight for God’s whisperings to be brought forth like a new babe into the world. But I had to surrender my half-eaten lunch. Would I obey?

God had been whispering, waking, urging my soul towards the new life he wanted to see sprouting in my heart.

Would I throw away my hope that God can grow something beautiful through the dry depleted soil of my life again today?

Would my discouragement win?

The question is not how big is our faith. The question is, how big is our God? I shrunk God, again, into my image.

And so I was asleep.

I awoke when reminded in a time of prayer this morning of this truth:

The impossible thing He whisperers that he wants to bring forth in our lives is easy for Him.

How exactly this discouragement transformed into hope is a story for another time.

But for now, suffice it to say that I was reminded that God made an amaryllis bloom after twenty years or more of bareness.

And He made a lilac bloom after ten years or more of barrenness.

And so He can make our lives bloom after seasons of bareness, too.

We begin to wake spiritually every day by opening our spiritual eyes.

Here’s how:

  1. We fix our spiritual eyes on God, the master gardener of hope, instead of keeping our eyes closed by focusing on our bareness.
  2. We open our eyes to the fact that harvest will come for every field, including that unwatered corner of our hearts if we allow the Master Gardener to work His ways within.
  3. We wait, not passively, but prayerfully, with anticipation, like a farmer planting seed in fertile soil.

This subtle shift in my thinking helped me soar on the wind of hope I found this morning. I picked up the hope. I carried it next to my heart.

For as the sky soars high above earth, so the way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think.

Just as rain and snow descend from the skies and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth, doing their work of making things grow and blossom, producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry, so will the words that come out of my mouth not come back empty-handed.

They’ll do the work I sent them to do, they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.

The Message

God is standing next to us with seeds, a shovel and a watering can. He wants to dig deep, exposing old roots to create room for new growth. I want to get out of the way to allow Him to do his work.

You?

While waiting for life to sprout, consider praying along to this song.

This song begins like the prayer of a person who doesn’t honestly believe what they’re praying (like many of many prayers over the years):

You make beautiful things out of the dust.

The song ends in a loud declaration of the exact words, daring the soul to believe.

Time for a battle for you, too, as you pray along to this song?

What is He saying to you through the pages of His book, asking you to have faith to believe?

May your eyes be opened, your soul awake.

Destroy People’s Self Esteem To Help Them Feel Better (Eventually) In These 3 Ways

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

“Wait, what are you doing right now?” he asked me.

I was melodramatically pretending to cry as the youth left the party.

“Oh, I’m just pretending I’m sad to see him leave,” I explained. “I made fun of him a lot tonight, and so now I’m building up his self-esteem.” The youth listened, mouth agape, staring at me.

As I’ve said before, my magnetism to youth is remarkable.

But unfortunately, we’re not supposed to make fun of millennials anymore. In fact, we’re not supposed to make fun of anyone anymore. So, at the next party, I tried to conform. 

I stuffed snack after snack into my mouth in an effort not to speak.

The problem is that if we really want to do this self-esteem thing right, we shouldn’t say anything true at all. Millennials, for example, have self-esteem that is 1/4 inch thick. If we accidentally blow the truth in their vicinity, they cry or get upset. “How dare you assault me with the truth?” they retort. “Don’t you know I’m sensitive?”

And so we apologize and cower to the needs of their egos.

“You’re doing great!” we assert, every time they look up from their iPhones or get out of bed.

“I can see you are trying to do some math! You get a star!”

“You ran in a race that you didn’t even train for? You get a medal! Everyone gets a medal!”

And with all of this self-esteem and encouragement, and “Well done!” floating around, you’d think our youth would be boyoed up by all this praise and floating happily on their circumstances in life.

Of course, we all know that youth depression and mental illness are at an all-time high.

So why not try another approach?

What if we tell everyone they’re losers?

It’s counterintuitive (like all my best advice), but we can finally let our stomach fat out and relax! We can stop pretending to be someone we’re not. We can get on with enjoying the party games, popcorn and time together.

“What are you talking about?” you ask.

Well, if we could relax and let our kids relax, I think we’d have a lot more fun. We don’t have to, in fact, shield our kids from the fact that they’re messed up and that we are, too. There is surprising freedom in realizing that we are all losers.

If we are at the bottom of the pit, there’s nowhere to go but up!

Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. 

The Message

Hope abounds because things can only get better!

Once we stop showering accolades on each other, and accept that we are all dorks, lost on the ship we call life, the adventure can begin!

Anyone around here seen a Captain? We could certainly use some help getting cleaned up a bit, and figuring out how to work together to get all of our oars on this boat pulling in the same direction.

And so, how do we feel better? 

1. We realize we are a directionless loser.

2. We find someone to help clean us up a bit.

3. We follow this person and therefore, all grow together in the same direction.

He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.

The Message

And life gets a little easier!

Spiritual people, for example, those who know that they are losers because they desperately need someone to clean them up, lead them and help them all row in a similar direction, tend to struggle a bit less frequently with their mental health.*

So stop building up people’s self-esteem! Trash them instead, knowing that this is the best way to build them up! They’ll (eventually) feel better!

You’re welcome!

Good luck!

Blogpost Footnotes

*Of course, many people within the church struggle with mental health, and research is based on averages.

The Secret To Easily Swap Embarrassment For Healthy Relationships

/ Lori Lawe / 1 Comment

When we were five years old, we thought everyone was laughing AT us until we suddenly realized they were laughing WITH us.

Remember that?

Well, that happened to me recently. I’m unsure which side of the laughing AT me/ laughing WITH me continuum I ended up on. But at least my rear end isn’t THAT sore from the fall.

This story starts, like all good narratives, with dog barf.

So after the dog… ahem… expelled his undesirable digestive remains (well said?) . . . we looked around at each other, wondering what to do next. We were enjoying heartfelt gut-level sharing. I guess the dog wanted to join in in his own way.

We only had a few minutes left together and desperately needed time to pray together, to invite God into the messes of our lives that had been unearthed.

Thinking that we won’t have time to pray, I fetched paper towels to clean up the mess the dog had unearthed. Someone pleaded with me to stay. “Let’s pray together while we have time,” he said.

At another’s brilliant suggestion, I quickly covered the dog’s mess with paper towels, and we stood in a circle, sharing hearts, tears and compassion.

“Don’t step in the dog barf on your way out!” I called cheerfully.

They genuinely thanked me for the reminder, side-stepped the soaked paper towels, and left with a wave and a smile.

Years later, our dear friends complimented us about that meeting.

“Recently, we were learning about the levels of friendship,” they explained. “There are friends that you dress up for. You wear a corset under your sparkling dress to ensure you look as good as possible. You enjoy an evening with them and then put your feet up. Your stomach fat and your real selves come out later.”

Who needs another “See how great I look when I suck in my stomach” kind of friend?

“Then,” she continued, “you have the friends who invite you onto their couch when you are crying and simply move the laundry hamper to the floor so there is room for you to sit down. These are true friends.“

I teared up at her warm assessment of our friendship.

I was about to hug her, but she was still speaking.

“And you guys took it to a whole new level. We come over, and you just suggest walking around the dog barf”. The others in the room stared at us, mouths agape, not wanting to ask for elaboration. I didn’t blame them.

But yes, a compliment . . . right???

And so the secret to a healthy relationship? Get real. We get real because we want to be authentic.

1. Authentic in how we REALLY look. For example, we don’t use the “Make me look better than in real life” filters on our Zoom meetings. (Have you SEEN that function? It’s AMAZING! I WANT to turn that filter off but wow! Do I EVER look better!) Give me a break! We are all a work in progress, ok?!

2. Authentic in how we REALLY feel. For example, maybe we ask our friends to clean up the dog barf later. What we just unearthed emotionally or spiritually is a lot viler and should take precedence.

3. Authentic in our RESPONSE to our friends. We are humans clothed in the limits of time. We can clean up the dog’s barf or clean up you. Which do you prefer?

So, let’s get real.

And if that sometimes means standing around dog barf, so be it.

As a dog eats its own vomit, so fools recycle silliness.

The Message

This saying doesn’t quite fit this post, but it perfectly fits in another, less profound way. Let’s go with a partial fit today and move on. There is someone at my door ready for a cry.

Lord, teach us to order our values to reflect your heart more accurately. After a moment of stillness, consider asking God where your life may not be aligned with the upside-down priorities of the kingdom of God. Maybe He is asking you to stand around the dog barf, too!