What You Don’t Know Can Save Your Life

November 26, 2012 by 24 Comments

As I navigate back into some normalcy after a few days of company and sick kids, I’m re-posting one of my favorite stories. At least that’s what the stats tell me. Hope this Monday on the heels of holiday finds you well.

We have a nightly dinner ritual that makes me feel insecure on most days. No one is aware of it, except for me.  Because admitting it, that would be embarrassing.

My husband was born with an uncanny ability to remember facts. A plethora of facts on just about any subject.  After twenty-two years, I am still in awe, acutely aware of the fact that it is a gift. Even more grateful for the money he saves us because of all the things he knows how to do.

Most evenings, while I scoop food on plates, our kids engage him in conversation. Last night my daughter asked him to do a WWII alphabet list. I have to admit that if she would have asked me, I’m not even sure I would have made it to letter D.

My silence probably clues my kids in to the reality that their mom doesn’t remember most of what she learned in school after fourth grade. Because when you are in charge of your own life, play the role of parent before you know how to drive a car, food and security take priority over the leadership of Hitler and mathematical equations.

What I remember most about school is how safe I felt in the classroom.  That the stiffness of worry I held at home, fell off during those hours seated at a desk among my friends. Truthfully, I didn’t care as much about what the textbook said, than the assurance of a safe place,  just in case I found myself alone or in danger. The fact that I made good grades, that is grace I don’t take for granted.

And after school, it wasn’t milk and cookies, and doing homework around the kitchen table with some help. I walked home to an empty house. Sometimes my mother met me inebriated on the front lawn, to greet my friends.

I can’t remember how to do geometry and I don’t quote facts about history. I would be one of those people we laugh about on Jay Leno, if he met me on the street and asked a random question.

But I can tell you how to hear God in your room at midnight when your house is full of strangers and smells of marijuana and beer.  How to hear him when you need to choose which school to attend, whether you should marry the man who asked you, and how to make a decision when it involves moving across the country to live in a place you have never seen before – three times.

I can help you to identify that still small voice of the One who created you, knew how your life would turn out even through the hardship. That voice wants to tell you how much He loves you now.

I can assure you that you most certainly are not your circumstances; that the power of God who raised Christ from the dead lives in you if you asked Him to.  And that nothing you face today is too difficult for Him.

And when I listen to the conversations about wars, cars and debates over historical facts, I sit with embarrassment about my lack of contribution . . .  with gratitude. Because those three people seated around my kitchen table, they are teaching this Mom and Wife all the things I missed.

They are the beauty of my redemption.

There is no end of the road, closed door, or circumstance too difficult for redemption to do its work. That fact, I know it well.

Linking with Ann today and counting thanks in my girl who continues to recover from a horrible accident less than two weeks ago. The way God is using it to reveal himself to us and to others. For our family who flew in from Ohio on a clear day and sat around a full table of food to give thanks. I’m thankful for antibiotics that make my girl with strep feel better in 24 hours and for my son who makes me laugh on a regular basis. For warm showers, heat in the car on a frosty day and for the way none of us seem to take anything for granted, and find gratitude in the simple things of life.

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Leaving Church

November 8, 2012 by 28 Comments

For the next six weeks, we’ll be exploring the question, “How do we walk out our faith in the midst of pain, suffering, disappointment, and loneliness,” with a book club discussion on Thursdays about Leaving Church by Barbara Brown Taylor. We’re starting today with the Introduction and Chapter 1. Join the conversation in the comments and on the closed Facebook page at Redemptions Beauty Book Club if you aren’t comfortable with sharing thoughts here. (And you can join at both places.)

I voted twice this week. Once on Monday. Once on Tuesday. Monday’s vote had nothing to do with a political election but the impact was greater for me.

My church took a vote and the outcome divided the people. I left my church the same day I started this new series. The irony is not lost on me.

When I was a child, I had two recurring dreams. In one of them, I am seated next to my mother who is driving the car. I look at her once and she is there. A second time and she vanishes, leaving me alone to drive a car as an adolescent. In the other dream, my mother and father swing me by my arms and legs in the backyard of my grandparent’s home, throw me up in the air, and I never come back down.

My parents divorced when I was three. My father remarried shortly after, while my mother raised me as a single parent, struggling with alcoholism and financial instability. Fear of abandonment plagued much of my life.

And that decision the church made on Monday, its why going to church lately feels like returning to my unstable childhood. It feels personal, even though I know it isn’t, just like my parents divorce.

Early memories of church sit between my grandparents on wooden pews inhaling the smell of the Old English my grandmother and I wiped on them with dust clothes the day before. At four-thirty mass on Saturday, the priest stands on the red carpet where my grandmother pushed vacuum tracks. Late afternoon sun pours through the stain glass windows captivating me, just like watching people filter into lines for communion.

And when my grandparents couldn’t drive two hours to pick me up to sleep over on the weekend, I climbed on the Baptist church bus with my friends. I wanted to go to church. Jesus was the only stable thing in my life. I counted on him every day to save me. I still do.

I don’t go to church because it is the right thing, the good thing, the social thing, or because I am a pastor’s wife. I go because I need to be in His presence, feel His peace, commune with the Saints, thank Him for breathe, hear His voice, remember my place is at His feet and hold on to the frayed end of hope.

Faith isn’t a destination, it’s a journey. Now I’m on the path that leads to the sheep tipped over and strewn on the hillsides of decision. Pulling them up one lamb at a time and following his footprints back home.

I’m more certain than ever, that He is with me.

Discussion

  1. In the Introduction Taylor says, “I guess you could say that my losses have been chiefly in the area of faith, and specifically in the area of being certain who God is, what God wants of me, and what it means to be Christian in a world where religion often seems to do more harm than good.” Can you relate to this? What parts of your faith do you find the most confidence? What parts have become less certain?
  2. How does the place where you live impact your faith?

For the Book Club

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Letting Go of the Past

October 8, 2012 by 34 Comments

Providential Relationships

He sees me wince, grab my lower back with one hand, balance the cup steeping tea in the other.  Leans over to grab a cup and asks if the low back pain is normal for me. I tell him it usually happens when I’m doing something new I’ve never done before, like this coach training session we’re doing together.

This man who fell out of a window and flies free from the cocoon of pain, he tells me the body often remembers what the mind forgets. The same physical response happens in similar circumstances, he tells me. “Do you remember it, the first time you held yourself tight doing something new,” he asks.

And right there, over the table of cream and sugar I remember it, like God pulling out a forgotten chapter in the story of my life.

When it All Started

A few months into her fifteenth year, she boards a Greyhound bus for the first time.  She hoists an oversized brown teddy bear and small suitcase up the steps, navigating the narrow aisle.  Her eyes ping pong back to front, side to side, assessing open seats avoiding eye contact with strangers.

She takes a seat next to the window, stares at the crowd below watching couples kiss, families wrap remembering around shoulders one last time.  Worries the community she leaves behind will forget her. Prays the new one won’t reject her.

The bear, a gift from friends at her going away party the night before, it sits in the aisle seat next to her blocking off the odd and strange.

On this day, pressed against cold glass, she holds herself tight in fear.

Pivotal Circumstances

I put the tea down on the table to catch my breath. The man whose new home is healing, he whispers a quiet prayer among the others pouring coffee, grabbing napkins. And I cross the threshold into letting go of what holds tight from the past when I sit back down in my office chair, lean back against the towel wrapped ice pack.

That bus carried me from Missouri to Oklahoma. To the one bedroom apartment stacked with Barry Manilow eight tracks on the table across from the cot I slept on for two years beside my Aunt Paula. Because I love my mother, not what the alcohol did to both of us.

Fear loosened its grip the day I stood on concrete halos of exhaust and held hands with security. But my body never forgot.

And that providential meeting in a fifteen minute break around a skirted table in the corner, it wet the ground of dormant seeds. And faith sprouted.

Now, when God extends a platter of pivotal circumstance to try, my body remembers and sighs peace. He was with me on the bus. He is with me now.  I taste and see that the Lord is good.

Who in your life has God used to grow your faith? Will you join me in thanking God for them?

Linking with Ann, Michelle and Laura.


This is the eighth post in the series 31 Days of Letting Go. You can read the collective here. If you are a writer, I invite you to link up any post you’ve written on the theme of letting go in the comments here on Friday. Subscribe to receive the series in your inbox or feed by adding your address in the side bar under Follow Redemptions Beauty.

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Awakenings That Lead to Defining Moments

September 24, 2012 by 53 Comments

I’m not sure when I stopped dreading weekends and coming home after being gone all day. All of fifteen and I breathe shallow years that come with the push of a grocery cart down the liquor aisle with my mother. The aisle next to my favorite cereal and frozen pizza snacks I chose for dinner.

She grabs Boone’s Farm from the shelf, lays it on top of the Milano cookies. I look at my watch, count the hours of dread before a new day dawns.

I escape the unwelcome transformation of my mother through the portal of prime time. Learn from the Brady’s and the Partridge Family what “normal” families do on weekends.

My mother and I, we mesh in the familiar weekend dance of escaping soul pain; offering consolation for the guilt on the edge of blankets with cigarette holes the next morning. It takes me a long time to let go of the false responsibility for the happiness of her misery.

Because honoring your father and mother doesn’t mean fixing them. Sometimes the most honoring thing you can do is let go.

The fear that comes with what I can’t control, it returns the day the line turns pink on the pregnancy test. After all, I did such a poor job parenting my mother; it terrifies me to think of the mistakes I might make with the clean slate of brand new life.

But redemption, it pushes through the birth canal in the tiny toes and wiggly fingers that pulse with my DNA. And God reveals how much he trusts me by granting the gift of motherhood.

An awakening to the realization that the pages of my life, they are not authored or edited based on my circumstances. My history as a child of an alcoholic shapes who I am, it doesn’t define me.

Because when I look into the eyes of my daughter at the dinner table, she sees her mother.  The mother, who cuddles with her on the couch, knows what kind of gum she chews, saves the last cookie in the jar, and hangs up the pile of clothes at the bottom of her closet when life gets overwhelming.

With every stage of parenting I am more fully awake to the knowledge that His plan for my life, for your life, they aren’t dependent on our experience or circumstance or the things we do for acceptance. And the deepest transformation often comes in packages labeled Beyond Your Experience and Instructions Not Required.

I find myself whispering worry prayers blanketed in the fear that I’m not doing enough. Am I doing enough to train my daughter to live on her own? Am I doing enough to be a successful writer? Am I doing enough to cultivate a hunger for Jesus in the heart of my children?

I’m the centurion (Matthew 8) asking Jesus what to do to resurrect the dead places, avoid death altogether. His answer has always been, trust me.

It’s Saturday and H pushes the grocery cart down the wide aisle at Costco. He holds up two bottles of Cabernet and arches his eyebrows for my approval. They find a place on top of the box of frozen pizzas and cereal. And I realize, I haven’t thought about watching the Brady’s for years.

He could plainly see that she was not herself. That is, he could not see that she was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world. ~The Awakening, Chopin

Joining the synchroblog at SheLoves/Magazine.com to share my story of awakening for their September theme of Awake. You can share your story too.

In community Michelle, Laura, Jen, Eileen and with Ann to count gifts. I’m thankful for a mid-day walk on the beach, for the new shoes that left footprints in the sand to follow back home, for the sand crabs that scurry down under and pelicans flying low over the water.

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For When You Feel Guilty About Your Feelings

August 22, 2012 by 71 Comments

It’s been two days since I received the phone call about the death of my brother. I haven’t cried yet.

I’m wavering between wondering if I’ve arrived at the place of assurance in the mystery, of knowing that life doesn’t come with answers to every question, or if I’m holding pain at a distance so far away I can’t recognize it.

I pull myself up on my elbows, lean into the mattress and reach for my phone. The flashing green dot alerts me to a full inbox of comments from Monday’s blog post. Condolences from the faithful, pleading heaven’s throne on my behalf and instead of consolation, I’m guilt-ridden.

Because when you sit at the card table in the other room for family meals long past your childhood, it feels wrong to be joining the family table in death, bringing friends along.

But the way you’ve offered your bare feet to walk through my grief, filling up the empty seats at the table, it’s an unexpected gift. We’ve gone out to the garage to get more chairs.

And just when I start worrying if I’ll have enough food for everyone, a friend seated around the table that I haven’t seen in years, she scoops a spoonful of casserole on her plate and leans in. She writes, “Shelly, I’m praying for you and your family, but somehow I feel led to pray for you concerning the loss of what could have been.”

Warm tears trickle down my chin and neck, drip pools into my pajama’d lap in the reading. Because when you recognize the truth, the Spirit doesn’t need you to think about it.

My brother and I woke up in separate states during childhood. We leaned into life from different angles trying to build a relationship on shared genes a few days harnessed from years of summers. I left the home of an alcoholic to enjoy a week of harmony. Wishing I could trade his life for mine. I never dreamt he would choose the lifestyle I wanted to escape.

Grief is the loss of what is.

Grief is the loss of what could have been.

Grief is the loss of what should have been.

Grief is the loss of what will never be.

Grief is loss.

I remember how You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. ~Psalm 56:8 NLT

Those tears of brokenness sliding down my face, they represent the way of awful grace. How He carries us through fragments of loss, into the hills of redemption to makes all things new. His love endures forever, even when we take our last breath.

In our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God. ~Aeschylus

Linking with God Bumps, Walk With Him Wednesday, WLWW, Unwrapping His Promises.

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Surprised by Redemption

March 28, 2012 by 74 Comments

Sage green corduroys and bell-bottom jeans with frayed ends hang next to the three shirts in the empty closet.  All of thirteen and I stare at them like paintings I am tired of looking at on my wall. It isn’t until my mother catches me going through her drawer to find something different to wear to school, that she realizes I only have five pieces of clothing.

My mother wakes up with bags under her eyes and swollen fingers from the manual labor she does at the shoe factory on most days.  I sit on the edge of her bed; weave my fingers through the cigarette holes in the blanket while we talk.  Reassure her that I still love her, even after the events of the night before.

The guilt lingers over her like the sour smell of cheap wine and ash trays lying around the house.

We eat a lot of boxed macaroni and cheese. Trips to the grocery store make my stomach hurt when we push the cart down the liquor aisle. But all that changes the day she decides to go see the Reverend Bill Cunieo.

The first time I met Bill, I sat in a pleather chair next to my mother in a church office that smelled of Old Spice aftershave.  His smile, like the crisp collared shirt he wore. Every hair slicked back perfectly, sitting stiff behind his brown particleboard desk.

I was sure he would get tired of us like everyone else. Wear that hospitable Christian smile, and then weary from the neediness we wore like rags. He proved me wrong.

After that meeting, my mother and I began attending church regularly. I exhaled a bit easier, worried less about the frenetic afterschool scenes.

When we moved away from that small Midwestern town a short time later, all those connections ended like the internet dropping in the middle of an upload.  Until one blustery day in a hotel room in Greensboro, North Carolina, thirty years later.

After H’s responsibilities in front of the crowds finish in the grand ballroom, we kick off our shoes.  Change into jeans, grab the wine opener and welcome friends into our suite. Laugh until the eyes see blurry and then do it again the next evening.

During one of those gatherings, in my socked feet, I extend my hand to welcome the Air Force chaplain I heard about from H over a dinner conversation.

“Steve Cunieo,” he says as he shakes my hand firmly.

Memories filed away decades ago suddenly open to a tab forgotten in the familiar tone of his voice. Words roll off my tongue like I am in a magician’s trance. “I once had a pastor by that name Cunieo,” I recall, “at a little church in Missouri called Faith Assembly of God.”

He looks down, then back up with a smile and says, “That’s my Dad.”

I take a step back, lean onto the back of a chair and my chest rises and falls heavy.  I can’t decide if I want to laugh or cry. And now all eyes in the room are on us, including those of my daughter, tucked next to her Grandma on the couch.

We went to the same church in a town I would just as soon forget. Moreover, his Dad, he introduced me to Jesus. What are the chances we would meet here in this hotel room in North Carolina? That my husband is his endorser.

So I asked him again.  Just to make sure.

Steve admits his Dad often questions the fruit from his time at that little church.  Says he grapples with wondering why God had him there.

He steps out of the room into the hallway, dials his Dad on his cell phone, hands it to me.

I remind Bill of the house where we lived, the one at the top of a dead end street with tilted floors and cockroaches crawling out of the walls.  He remembers it. The one he visited with a bag of groceries under his arm a time or two.

Maybe it gave that humble man, the one who made Jesus so desirable, some comfort knowing my life took a divine bend on the journey because of his faithfulness to the call of God.

Nothing is lost in this life.  Every minute, every word, every circumstance is useful in God’s divine plan. Because God calls out the beauty of our redemption in the most unexpected places, to extract the best of who we are.

Have you been surprised by redemption?

This story is a repost, rewritten for today’s link-up with God Bumps and God Incidences.

Also linking with:

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Because What You Don’t Know, Can Save Your Life

March 21, 2012 by 68 Comments

We have a nightly dinner ritual that makes me feel insecure on most days. No one is aware of it, except for me.  Because admitting it, that would be embarrassing.

My husband was born with an uncanny ability to remember facts. A plethora of facts on just about any subject.  After twenty-two years, I am still in awe of this, acutely aware of the fact that it is a gift, and even more grateful for the money he saves us because of all the things he knows how to do.

Most evenings, while I scoop food on plates, our kids engage him in conversation. Last night my daughter asked him to do a WWII alphabet list. I have to admit that if she would have asked me, I am not even sure I would have made it to letter D.

I’m sure my silence clues my kids in to the reality that their mom doesn’t remember most of what she learned in school after fourth grade. Because when you are in charge of your own life, play the role of parent before you know how to drive a car, food and security take priority over the leadership of Hitler and mathematical equations.

What I remember most about school is how safe I felt in the classroom.  That the stiffness of worry I held at home, fell off during those hours seated at a desk among my friends. Truthfully, I didn’t care as much about what the textbook said, as for the assurance of a safe place, just in case I found myself alone or in danger. The fact that I made good grades, that is a grace gift.

And after school, it wasn’t milk and cookies, and doing homework around the kitchen table with some help. I walked home to an empty house, or worse, my mother met me inebriated on the front lawn, to greet my friends.

I can’t remember how to do geometry and I don’t quote facts about history. I would be one of those people we laugh about on Jay Leno, if he met me on the street and asked a random question.

But I can tell you how to hear God in your room at midnight when your house is full of strangers and smells of marijuana and beer.  How to hear him when you need to choose which school to attend, whether you should marry the man who asked you, or when you have a decision to move across the country to live in a place you have never seen before – three times.

I can help you to identify that still small voice of the one who created you, knew how your life would turn out even through the hardship. The voice of the one that wants to tell you how much He loves you now.

I can assure you that you most certainly are not your circumstances; that the power of God who raised Christ from the dead lives in you if you asked Him to.  And that nothing you face today is too difficult for Him.

And when I listen to the conversations about wars, cars and debates over historical facts, I sit with embarrassment about my lack of contribution . . .  with gratitude. Because those three people seated around my kitchen table, they are teaching this mom and wife all the things I missed.

They are the beauty of my redemption.

There is no end of the road, closed door, or circumstance too difficult for redemption to do its work. That fact, I know it well.

Linking with God Bumps and God Incidences, Walk With Him Wednesday, Painting Prose, Word Filled Wednesday, Thought Provoking Thursday.

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