Kaitlyn is now seven months old, a month into what I've thought of as "the golden age of babyhood" since Alexandra went through it.
I love my babies at this age; they are so fascinating and just... enjoyable between six and twelve months. (In case there's any doubt, I love my babies all the time. But some ages are more fun than others.)
She's becoming much more independent than she was; her attention lasts longer, and she will spend several minutes playing with toys. She loves reading and has favorite books.
She's curious about everything and wants to grab anything in sight, from toys that she can manipulate to large objects that she scratches at to her sister's hair. When she finally grasps the objects she's reaching for, she loves turning them over in her chubby little hands to examine them, taste them, give them a good shake, and whack them against things to see what happens.
She experiments to figure things out; when she sits on the table in her Bumbo while I prepare lunch, she smacks the soles of her feet against the wood, enjoying the sounds. She'll grip a toy with both hands, raise it above her head, and try with all her might to pull it apart. When she discovers that she can get a new view of something by rolling from her back to her side, she rolls back and forth several times just to practice.
She's on the verge of exciting physical accomplishments. In two weeks, she went from not being able to sit up at all to sitting up by herself for several minutes while playing. She loves to grasp my fingers and pull herself up to standing, especially if her big sister is standing right next to her. She gets up on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth, eventually stretching out on her tummy to reach whatever it is that she wants. And she has three teeth coming in, all at once!
Also at this age, she's at her most social. She can distinguish between her family and friends and strangers. Mommy is still her favorite, but she adores her big sister and has a special smile just for Daddy. She's always been a pretty cheerful baby and likes to smile at almost anyone who smiles at her. Just don't make her mad, because there are certain triggers (such as not feeding her RIGHT NOW when she's hungry after a long nap) that turn her from easygoing to enraged, from smiling to tearful and red-faced.
It was surprising to me how many differences I could see between my girls' personalities, right from the first weeks of their lives. Now those personality differences are more obvious. Kaitlyn has always been my cuddle-bug, my little Mommy's girl, the one who likes silence like me, whereas Alexandra was fairly independent right away and likes background noise like her daddy. Kaitlyn loves interesting textures and would rather be constantly on the move, touching and tasting things, while Alexandra always wanted to sit back and observe.
It is so exciting to watch babies gain new skills and abilities, and it astounds me how much you can know about these little beings who can't talk, just by observing them and interacting with them. I'm so looking forward to the next few months of the Golden Age.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
What Is This Freedom, and Where Do I Get It, and Who Gets the Glory? How Galatians Is Transforming My Idea of "God's Way"
My friend recently wrote a blog post entitled, "Why I Won't Be 'Growing My Kids God's Way.'" I agreed with her post, as I'm not a fan of what I know about the program. What really hit home for me, though, was her follow-up post, written because some readers were wondering why she was so opposed to that particular program. After all, most parently ideologies and programs have strengths and weaknesses; why not take in the good and leave out of the bad? For her, it all came down to the idea of God's grace: the Growing Kids God's Way program has a very strong emphasis on external behavior.
Katie wrote, "It is because I come out of a works-based, earning, “getting it right” culture of Christianity…but am conversely learning the everyday reality and expression of grace…that I am so passionate about exposing programs, habits, and expressions of any works-based version of Christianity." This statement resonated strongly with me, as I only realized relatively recently how ingrained a works-based Christianity was in my soul, and I find myself more and more aware of all the subtleties of works-based "Christianity" that are present in the American church (not to pick on Americans only, but I am not very familiar with other countries' church cultures).
A culture of works-based Christianity is a lot like slavery. You can't imagine the pride and arrogance that fill your heart (which you try not to express, because that would expose you) when you are keeping the rules. You can't imagine the devastation and alienation from God you feel when you mess up. You can't imagine the incongruity between an outer world where people talk about how good you are, a shining light and example, and your inner world full of doubts, struggles, bitterness, anger, and pride (that you can't ever get help with, because then everyone would know you weren't as good as you seemed).
Growing up in the church, I was very much aware of the enslavements of sin. I wasn't aware of the enslavement of religion. I knew what things I should and shouldn't do. My personality naturally wants to please people, and the esteem of authority figures feeds my pride, so being good was easy for me. I LIKED following rules, because following rules was a sure way to earn the approval of parents, teachers, and other adults in my life. I was able to figure out the "rules" of getting along in the kid world and obtain the approval of kids around me.
I didn't realize until I was older that I applied the same logic to my relationship with God. It was easy: I would and wouldn't do certain things to keep God happy. Principles about loving God and people were difficult to manage, because they were not measurable; rules and measureables I liked, because I could check them off my list.
But things started to change as I got older. I doubted my salvation, because I kept finding sin in myself. I knew that God loved me because He loves everybody - that's just what He does - but I had trouble believing He loved me individually. I kept hearing people talk about grace and Jesus's love and freedom, and I became more and more frustrated because I didn't know what those things felt like. I knew what I should believe and what I should do, but I wasn't sure I had this relationship that everyone kept talking about. I would read books about grace and passages throughout the New Testament, but I could never really believe that grace was for me.
Deep down inside, I truly believed what an LDS friend of mine once expressed: you have to work hard and earn God's love and approval, and Jesus takes care of the rest. That is, it's mostly up to you to try to be good, and the Cross is for the leftovers. I would never say it when talking about my beliefs or theology, but my heart and behavior revealed my true belief: Jesus would only do His part if I was working hard to do mine. And I was afraid of Him, because I knew that I was not working as hard as I could. And if I were to work as hard as I could... I would probably die, or at the very least, hate God.
I knew this was wrong, but couldn't get it into my heart. Speaking to others about this, I even felt a little mystified by my mom's definition: "Here's how I feel His grace: Imagine lying on your back, floating in a pool. Every part of your body is relaxed, the water holds you up, the sun is warm on your face.... Ah, ...grace. God does all the work." It was a foreign concept.
Since I knew that Galatians talked a lot about grace, I decided to read Galatians. Over and over. Until what Paul said about Jesus and grace became second nature to me, rather than glimpses of hope in my rule-bound world.
That was when I learned something interesting about my rule-keeping.
Even though I knew I was in a spiritual prison of sorts, I had never realized that my rule-keeping was evil. I always assumed there were a few levels of evil, of worldliness. The lowest, of course, was enslavement to worldliness, to obvious sins like adultery, murder, greed, etc. Wanting to follow rules and earn salvation, though not the way to salvation, of course, was at least better, because you were wanting to please God. Surely that desire counted for something. I did not see a difference between obeying God so that He would love me and obeying God because He loved me.
And then, as I was reading through Galatians the second or third or fourth time, I'm not sure when, I was hit by something as a lightening bolt. Galatians 2:20 said, "I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose."
Hmmm. I think that's when it began to sink in.
I would never, ever say to Jesus, "Sorry, Your grace means nothing." Nor would I say, "Your death on the cross was pretty much insufficient. You can't save me. Only I can save me." Yet that was what I was doing every time I felt like my good deeds were giving God a helping hand. Trying to be good to earn my salvation wasn't okay because "at least I was trying." I was convicted of my own arrogance. As Martin Luther said in his commentary on Galatians, "What awful presumption to imagine that there is any work good enough to pacify God, when to pacify God required the invaluable price of the death and blood of His own and only Son?... To keep the Law in order to be justified means to reject grace, to deny Christ, to despise His sacrifice, and to be lost."
Then, I read another verse. Galatians 4:3 said, "So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world." Growing up in a particular denomination of the church, I had always read this verse as being about bondage to the sins that related to "being bad," not "being good." Drinking, premarital sex, murder, hatred... those were the worldly things that enslaved people. But as I studied Galatians, I realized that the "elemental things of the world" were actually the religious systems apart from Christ's death and resurrection. Trying to earn heaven by following rules, as good as I had thought it, was actually a form of worldliness, an effort that Paul described as "weak and worthless elemental things." (Gal. 4:9) In thinking that I would earn God's love by avoiding worldliness and darkness, I was living under a different kind of worldliness and darkness.
As Martin Luther expressed it, "[The Law] may restrain evil, but it does not deliver from sin." I had assumed that restraining my sin would deliver me from evil. Yet my inner life proved otherwise, and my awareness of the inner life (and its overflow into my outer life) led me to despair and be angry with God. Why would He ask me to be good and make it so hard? Why would He give me a desire to please Him along with an inability to do so? And as it began to really sink in that I could not save myself, that the attempt to do so would just add to my pride and list of sins, it was then that I began to trust in Christ's effort alone to save me. In all my straining to obey the American Church version of the Law and my studying of the Gospel over and over, they worked together as God intended. When I finally reached the hopelessness that anyone who pursues the Law eventually finds, I arrived at the hope revealed in the Gospel. Once again, Luther expressed perfectly what was in my heart:
"Men fast, pray, watch, suffer. They intend to appease the wrath of God and to deserve God's grace by their exertions. But there is no glory in it for God, because by their exertions these workers pronounce God an unmerciful slave driver, an unfaithful and angry Judge. They despise God, make a liar out of Him, snub Christ and all His benefits; in short they pull God from His throne and perch themselves on it.
"Faith truly honors God. And because faith honors God, God counts faith for righteousness.
"Christian righteousness is the confidence of the heart in God through Christ Jesus."
My attempts at self-salvation are worthless and worldly. So what do I do? How do I respond? I am learning to be wary of any response that involves ME trying or my effort. All I can do is ask Jesus to change me from the inside out, to give me faith because I can't muster it up or fake it, and choose to believe that He will deliver me. And here, in this spot, I am finally loving God not only because I know He is just and powerful and terrifyingly worthy of awe, but also because He is showing me how loving and gracious He is. "Do not fear, do not worry about your salvation," He says, "because I was willing to give up My own Son for your righteousness, and I am saving you."
Anyway... that's the long version. All this to say, I know where my friend is coming from in her visceral reactions against any parenting program that encourages our human tendency to rely on behavior as a measure of righteousness while downplaying the heart. Once you are rescued from that place, you never want to go back, and you certainly don't want people you love to end up there.
"If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit to [external] decrees.... These matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence." -Colossians 2:20, 23
You cannot promote man's efforts to be good as "God's way."
Katie wrote, "It is because I come out of a works-based, earning, “getting it right” culture of Christianity…but am conversely learning the everyday reality and expression of grace…that I am so passionate about exposing programs, habits, and expressions of any works-based version of Christianity." This statement resonated strongly with me, as I only realized relatively recently how ingrained a works-based Christianity was in my soul, and I find myself more and more aware of all the subtleties of works-based "Christianity" that are present in the American church (not to pick on Americans only, but I am not very familiar with other countries' church cultures).
A culture of works-based Christianity is a lot like slavery. You can't imagine the pride and arrogance that fill your heart (which you try not to express, because that would expose you) when you are keeping the rules. You can't imagine the devastation and alienation from God you feel when you mess up. You can't imagine the incongruity between an outer world where people talk about how good you are, a shining light and example, and your inner world full of doubts, struggles, bitterness, anger, and pride (that you can't ever get help with, because then everyone would know you weren't as good as you seemed).
Growing up in the church, I was very much aware of the enslavements of sin. I wasn't aware of the enslavement of religion. I knew what things I should and shouldn't do. My personality naturally wants to please people, and the esteem of authority figures feeds my pride, so being good was easy for me. I LIKED following rules, because following rules was a sure way to earn the approval of parents, teachers, and other adults in my life. I was able to figure out the "rules" of getting along in the kid world and obtain the approval of kids around me.
I didn't realize until I was older that I applied the same logic to my relationship with God. It was easy: I would and wouldn't do certain things to keep God happy. Principles about loving God and people were difficult to manage, because they were not measurable; rules and measureables I liked, because I could check them off my list.
But things started to change as I got older. I doubted my salvation, because I kept finding sin in myself. I knew that God loved me because He loves everybody - that's just what He does - but I had trouble believing He loved me individually. I kept hearing people talk about grace and Jesus's love and freedom, and I became more and more frustrated because I didn't know what those things felt like. I knew what I should believe and what I should do, but I wasn't sure I had this relationship that everyone kept talking about. I would read books about grace and passages throughout the New Testament, but I could never really believe that grace was for me.
Deep down inside, I truly believed what an LDS friend of mine once expressed: you have to work hard and earn God's love and approval, and Jesus takes care of the rest. That is, it's mostly up to you to try to be good, and the Cross is for the leftovers. I would never say it when talking about my beliefs or theology, but my heart and behavior revealed my true belief: Jesus would only do His part if I was working hard to do mine. And I was afraid of Him, because I knew that I was not working as hard as I could. And if I were to work as hard as I could... I would probably die, or at the very least, hate God.
I knew this was wrong, but couldn't get it into my heart. Speaking to others about this, I even felt a little mystified by my mom's definition: "Here's how I feel His grace: Imagine lying on your back, floating in a pool. Every part of your body is relaxed, the water holds you up, the sun is warm on your face.... Ah, ...grace. God does all the work." It was a foreign concept.
Since I knew that Galatians talked a lot about grace, I decided to read Galatians. Over and over. Until what Paul said about Jesus and grace became second nature to me, rather than glimpses of hope in my rule-bound world.
That was when I learned something interesting about my rule-keeping.
Even though I knew I was in a spiritual prison of sorts, I had never realized that my rule-keeping was evil. I always assumed there were a few levels of evil, of worldliness. The lowest, of course, was enslavement to worldliness, to obvious sins like adultery, murder, greed, etc. Wanting to follow rules and earn salvation, though not the way to salvation, of course, was at least better, because you were wanting to please God. Surely that desire counted for something. I did not see a difference between obeying God so that He would love me and obeying God because He loved me.
And then, as I was reading through Galatians the second or third or fourth time, I'm not sure when, I was hit by something as a lightening bolt. Galatians 2:20 said, "I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose."
Hmmm. I think that's when it began to sink in.
I would never, ever say to Jesus, "Sorry, Your grace means nothing." Nor would I say, "Your death on the cross was pretty much insufficient. You can't save me. Only I can save me." Yet that was what I was doing every time I felt like my good deeds were giving God a helping hand. Trying to be good to earn my salvation wasn't okay because "at least I was trying." I was convicted of my own arrogance. As Martin Luther said in his commentary on Galatians, "What awful presumption to imagine that there is any work good enough to pacify God, when to pacify God required the invaluable price of the death and blood of His own and only Son?... To keep the Law in order to be justified means to reject grace, to deny Christ, to despise His sacrifice, and to be lost."
Then, I read another verse. Galatians 4:3 said, "So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world." Growing up in a particular denomination of the church, I had always read this verse as being about bondage to the sins that related to "being bad," not "being good." Drinking, premarital sex, murder, hatred... those were the worldly things that enslaved people. But as I studied Galatians, I realized that the "elemental things of the world" were actually the religious systems apart from Christ's death and resurrection. Trying to earn heaven by following rules, as good as I had thought it, was actually a form of worldliness, an effort that Paul described as "weak and worthless elemental things." (Gal. 4:9) In thinking that I would earn God's love by avoiding worldliness and darkness, I was living under a different kind of worldliness and darkness.
As Martin Luther expressed it, "[The Law] may restrain evil, but it does not deliver from sin." I had assumed that restraining my sin would deliver me from evil. Yet my inner life proved otherwise, and my awareness of the inner life (and its overflow into my outer life) led me to despair and be angry with God. Why would He ask me to be good and make it so hard? Why would He give me a desire to please Him along with an inability to do so? And as it began to really sink in that I could not save myself, that the attempt to do so would just add to my pride and list of sins, it was then that I began to trust in Christ's effort alone to save me. In all my straining to obey the American Church version of the Law and my studying of the Gospel over and over, they worked together as God intended. When I finally reached the hopelessness that anyone who pursues the Law eventually finds, I arrived at the hope revealed in the Gospel. Once again, Luther expressed perfectly what was in my heart:
"Men fast, pray, watch, suffer. They intend to appease the wrath of God and to deserve God's grace by their exertions. But there is no glory in it for God, because by their exertions these workers pronounce God an unmerciful slave driver, an unfaithful and angry Judge. They despise God, make a liar out of Him, snub Christ and all His benefits; in short they pull God from His throne and perch themselves on it.
"Faith truly honors God. And because faith honors God, God counts faith for righteousness.
"Christian righteousness is the confidence of the heart in God through Christ Jesus."
My attempts at self-salvation are worthless and worldly. So what do I do? How do I respond? I am learning to be wary of any response that involves ME trying or my effort. All I can do is ask Jesus to change me from the inside out, to give me faith because I can't muster it up or fake it, and choose to believe that He will deliver me. And here, in this spot, I am finally loving God not only because I know He is just and powerful and terrifyingly worthy of awe, but also because He is showing me how loving and gracious He is. "Do not fear, do not worry about your salvation," He says, "because I was willing to give up My own Son for your righteousness, and I am saving you."
Anyway... that's the long version. All this to say, I know where my friend is coming from in her visceral reactions against any parenting program that encourages our human tendency to rely on behavior as a measure of righteousness while downplaying the heart. Once you are rescued from that place, you never want to go back, and you certainly don't want people you love to end up there.
"If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit to [external] decrees.... These matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence." -Colossians 2:20, 23
You cannot promote man's efforts to be good as "God's way."
Friday, August 30, 2013
Why I Write, Part 2: Fiction
I've always loved stories. I loved reading as soon as I learned how; I wrote my first stories when I was five or six years old. I would write and illustrate my own books, populating them with numerous characters and drawing the illustrations and completing them by stapling all the papers together. As I grew older, both the stories I read and the ones I wrote grew longer. Some of my best childhood memories are of moving around the country with Laura Ingalls Wilder, exploring the Mississippi (and avoiding getting caught) with Huck Finn, and enjoying all the quirks and oddities of humanity with Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon. I remember reflecting on Laura's way of dealing with mean girls, Emily's struggles to please her family, and Huck's wrestling with his own conceptions of race and those that his authorities were proclaiming as truth.
I honestly get bored with the sameness of me, the sameness of my life. I love to meet different people, travel to new places, and learn about things I've never experienced. I never had a sister, so I am curious to know what that would be like. I came from a happy, stable family, so I wonder how my life would be different if I had come from an unhappy family. I grew up in the West; I have no idea what it's like to live on the East Coast. Whenever I hear about anyone's problems, I always wonder, "How would I react? What would I do?" Sometimes I get frustrated with my own personality. I have weaknesses and shortcomings, and it's fun to imagine that I am someone different. Sure, if I had a different personality I would have other weaknesses. But at least when I invent a whole new personality, I can take a break from mine for a while.
And humans! Human beings are endlessly fascinating to me. Every single person ever born has been unique, yet we share so many similar traits. Myers-Briggs can break most people down into sixteen basic personality types, yet no two people are exactly the same. Humans have weaknesses that turn out to be strengths, a tendency to self-destruct, and blindnesses about themselves that are somehow obvious to everyone else.
It's this endless curiosity that leads me to read and eventually, to write. When I want new experiences, I can read, but sometimes my mind begins exploring questions about people and experiences before I think to look for a particular book. That's where stories come from, and once they're inside, I have to write them out.
Also, writing stories enables me to work out problems, both ones feared or imagined and ones experienced, in a meaningful way. I have a hard time talking about my feelings, and the straightforward answer to an issue, conflict, or difficult experience can often satisfy my mind, but not always my heart. And when I work out something intellectually without really working it out in my heart, eventually I will once again struggle with the problem.
The most clarity comes when I explore problems or conflicts through fiction. Approaching a problem through a fictional world gives me enough distance to be a little more objective, yet living through the characters keeps it close enough to my heart that when I have finished writing, I feel a peace and understanding that won't come simply through a rational process.
These new experiences and methods of problem-solving make writing fiction a joy for me. It's a difficult joy, one that only come after a lot of staring at a blank page and what seems to be wasted time imagining paths that never work out in the story. But I think that the most lasting and deep joys only come through difficulties, so it's worth the time and energy.
That's why I write fiction.
These memories reflect why I like to write fiction: 1) I am greedy for new experiences and 2) For me and many people, fiction is a powerful way to learn about the world and work out problems.
I honestly get bored with the sameness of me, the sameness of my life. I love to meet different people, travel to new places, and learn about things I've never experienced. I never had a sister, so I am curious to know what that would be like. I came from a happy, stable family, so I wonder how my life would be different if I had come from an unhappy family. I grew up in the West; I have no idea what it's like to live on the East Coast. Whenever I hear about anyone's problems, I always wonder, "How would I react? What would I do?" Sometimes I get frustrated with my own personality. I have weaknesses and shortcomings, and it's fun to imagine that I am someone different. Sure, if I had a different personality I would have other weaknesses. But at least when I invent a whole new personality, I can take a break from mine for a while.
And humans! Human beings are endlessly fascinating to me. Every single person ever born has been unique, yet we share so many similar traits. Myers-Briggs can break most people down into sixteen basic personality types, yet no two people are exactly the same. Humans have weaknesses that turn out to be strengths, a tendency to self-destruct, and blindnesses about themselves that are somehow obvious to everyone else.
It's this endless curiosity that leads me to read and eventually, to write. When I want new experiences, I can read, but sometimes my mind begins exploring questions about people and experiences before I think to look for a particular book. That's where stories come from, and once they're inside, I have to write them out.
Also, writing stories enables me to work out problems, both ones feared or imagined and ones experienced, in a meaningful way. I have a hard time talking about my feelings, and the straightforward answer to an issue, conflict, or difficult experience can often satisfy my mind, but not always my heart. And when I work out something intellectually without really working it out in my heart, eventually I will once again struggle with the problem.
The most clarity comes when I explore problems or conflicts through fiction. Approaching a problem through a fictional world gives me enough distance to be a little more objective, yet living through the characters keeps it close enough to my heart that when I have finished writing, I feel a peace and understanding that won't come simply through a rational process.
These new experiences and methods of problem-solving make writing fiction a joy for me. It's a difficult joy, one that only come after a lot of staring at a blank page and what seems to be wasted time imagining paths that never work out in the story. But I think that the most lasting and deep joys only come through difficulties, so it's worth the time and energy.
That's why I write fiction.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Why I Write: Part 1
I'm not really sure how many installments it's going to take to explain why I like to write so much. I know there will be at least one more post about why I write fiction, and another one about writing nonfiction. Clearly planning is not my forte as a blogger. But after you read today's post, I hope you will understand why I'm not sure how long it will take to explain why I like to write.
Here's why I write.
My brain feels scattered, and writing is my way of organizing all my mental objects. Thoughts that that are crowding around in my mind move too fast and are too tangled and interconnected for me to ever make sense of them; they exist as a collection of images, feelings, words, memories, and information. They are not arranged linearly or pictorially or in categories. As far as I can tell, they are not arranged at all, and try as I might, I cannot organize them by just sitting around and thinking.
This means that processing information, or processing my thoughts and feelings, is difficult for me. So, I write to process. Otherwise, all those thoughts are lying around in pieces, never quite connecting and forming a unified whole. Unlike linear and logical people, I have no innate mental schema for organizing thoughts. I have one friend who only wrote one draft of every paper she wrote in college (and she got good grades). That’s right: she could formulate an argument and come to a conclusion all in one draft, writing her paper from start to finish, from introduction to logical conclusion. I, however, cannot tell a story from beginning to end. My brain doesn’t work that way. When I start writing, I have some idea of what I'll include and where I'm going, but it's never complete. I have to edit and reorganize as I go.
Here’s how I picture it: Some people's brains are like a new 64-pack of crayons, with each crayon of a particular color representing a complete idea and its sub-ideas. These people's thoughts are neatly separated, whole entities, still in their fresh wrappers, and sorted by color from lightest to darkest. These are the people who are logical and linear; they have administrative and organizational gifts. When they encounter new information, it's often easy for them to know where that new information fits in. Simple! Just find the crayons of most similar color and make a space for the new crayon in between.
On the other hand, my mind is like a 64-pack where all of the crayons have been broken into multiple pieces. In fact, the pack itself was destroyed and thrown away long ago, so now all the crayons are kept in a big jumble in a plastic bowl, and there are no wrappers to speak of. If two pieces of the same color happen to be touching, it’s only by coincidence. When thoughts get long and complicated, there's no way I can find any kind of conclusion, because I don't know where all the pieces of that crayon are. Throw in new information, and it just sits in the bowl on top of the pile.
Writing for me is like sorting the big bowl of crayons according to color. I don’t pick through the crayons and try to find every single piece of red all at once, moving on to every single piece of blue, pink, etc. Writing is the process of getting all the crayons out of the bowl and sorting through them so I can put like colors together. It allows me to lay everything out at once that seems to be even remotely related, then select the truly relevant details and thoughts. I can piece them together and see what kind of whole they form (putting the same color pieces together to make a crayon), and I can throw the irrelevant pieces (the other colors) back in the bowl. When I write, it puts the words, images, feelings, memories outside of me and allows me to organize them.
This is my brain. This is why I need to write.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Someone Prayed for Me
Monday morning when I woke up, I turned off the alarm on my phone and instantly went to Facebook, something that I've found helps me wake up mentally and actually get out of bed, instead of just going back to sleep. And I found out that someone was praying for me.
I don't know this woman very well. I know her through Facebook updates; she goes to our church; I had taught her daughter in a small Spanish class I did for a homeschool co-op a couple years ago. But she had tagged me in her status update, saying that she had woken up early and was praying for me and a few other people who have been hurt by some recent events.
It was humbling and, of course, encouraging. I felt so grateful that while I've been feeling very alone in my struggles, someone was praying for me. This made me stop and pray for her family as well.
Then I started thinking about the other people for whom she was praying, and I prayed for them too. Then, I remembered some other friends who were going through difficult times or who were about to do something out of the ordinary, so I prayed for them too. A few other people came into my mind, so I prayed for them too.
Then I started thinking about the nature of prayer, and how much we need it, and how little I do it. I thought about how merciful God is to me, and how He saved me, and how much He and His Son sacrificed to save me. I thought about the nature of God.
And all this before breakfast!
I cannot pray and contemplate God for long without feeling peace come over me. It makes me forget the little troubles and feel grateful for what I have. It reminds me that I don't have to be stressed about controlling all the little details in my life, because Someone who loves me with perfect wisdom is controlling them for me. I start thinking about how I can love others, instead of how I can get them to love me.
God worked through her prayers. The morning was wonderful because a woman stopped and prayed for me, and let me know she was praying for me. This made me more determined to stop and pray for others, and let them know about it as well. I truly thank Him for her.
I don't know this woman very well. I know her through Facebook updates; she goes to our church; I had taught her daughter in a small Spanish class I did for a homeschool co-op a couple years ago. But she had tagged me in her status update, saying that she had woken up early and was praying for me and a few other people who have been hurt by some recent events.
It was humbling and, of course, encouraging. I felt so grateful that while I've been feeling very alone in my struggles, someone was praying for me. This made me stop and pray for her family as well.
Then I started thinking about the other people for whom she was praying, and I prayed for them too. Then, I remembered some other friends who were going through difficult times or who were about to do something out of the ordinary, so I prayed for them too. A few other people came into my mind, so I prayed for them too.
Then I started thinking about the nature of prayer, and how much we need it, and how little I do it. I thought about how merciful God is to me, and how He saved me, and how much He and His Son sacrificed to save me. I thought about the nature of God.
And all this before breakfast!
I cannot pray and contemplate God for long without feeling peace come over me. It makes me forget the little troubles and feel grateful for what I have. It reminds me that I don't have to be stressed about controlling all the little details in my life, because Someone who loves me with perfect wisdom is controlling them for me. I start thinking about how I can love others, instead of how I can get them to love me.
God worked through her prayers. The morning was wonderful because a woman stopped and prayed for me, and let me know she was praying for me. This made me more determined to stop and pray for others, and let them know about it as well. I truly thank Him for her.
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