For My Daughter As She Walks Through the Valley of Middle School

I’m not going to lie.  It took all my mommy powers to put on a brave face and tell you over and over again, “You are going to love middle school!  You already have so many friends and you will make new friends super fast.  You won’t have any problems figuring out lockers and schedules and where to sit in the lunchroom.”  Secretly, though, I knew you were walking into a virtual minefield.  That’s what middle school is these days, especially for girls.  I’ve worried about your tender heart and your overwhelming shyness around strangers and how you would cope with mean girls and fickle boys.  I’ve always thought that your biggest struggle would be that everyone will want to be your friend but you will believe no one likes you.  I prayed down angel armies over you time and time again this summer as the start of school came near.  Every day I have asked God for one thing- a confidence in yourself that cannot be shaken.  The same fearless confidence that sent you climbing trees when you were little-

I think of confidence as a shield around your heart, something that will protect you from all of the attacks on your self-esteem that every young girl faces day to day as she walk the halls of middle school.  Pressure to look a certain way.  Pressure to be cute and sweet and popular.  Pressure to impress a boy.  I often see girls just a little older than you whose lives become completely derailed because they lost their identity in a series of one bad choice after another.  I see their hearts broken by boyfriends who leave them hurting and lost in more ways than your young mind can imagine.  I see their self worth tied to how many friends they have on Facebook or followers on Instagram.  I see them utterly destroyed by one inappropriate picture gone viral.  It is sad to see the way that they have lost their confidence in themselves.  They no longer believe that they can accomplish their dreams.  They have often forgotten how to dream.

This is why your dad and I get up every morning in the summers to take you to swim practice.  Why we spent long Saturday mornings cheering you on while you raced.  Why we drive you to soccer practice and celebrate every time you push a girl out of the way to go after the ball and shout, "Way to be aggressive, Camdyn!" Why we really don’t care if your team wins, just as long as you love the game and keep that fierce look on your face every time you play.  What you don’t know is that we have been investing in your confidence since the day you were born.  Bit by bit, we have been building it up like currency.  Saving it up for days like these.

See that confidence, shimmering under your smile?

So, it should not have been a big surprise when you came home from school on the first day with a smile on your face and declared, “I think I’m going to love middle school.”   I said you would, didn’t I?  Every day you bounce in the door with a new accomplishment, “Mom! I made an A+ on my math test!”  Of course you did, I want to say, math is your thing.  What has been surprising and perhaps a miracle is that the place where your confidence has soared the most has been gym class.  Who knew middle school PE would build your confidence so much?  First you came home proud as a pea about how fast you ran the mile.  Then, there was the day you came home beaming, “I beat everyone in my pacer test! Even all the boys!”  Last night, when you were talking about how many “legit” pushups you did in class, I said, “I bet you never realized just how strong you are.”  Your response? “No, I never realized just how AWESOME I am!”

That’s it Baby Girl.  Right there.  I wish I could put it in a bottle for you.  Freeze these moments of pure confidence for a rainy day.  There will be rainy days.  You already spend a little too much time worrying about your outfits and your hair.  I’ve even caught you sneaking out the door with makeup on. (Makeup!!??)  But right now, you see your body as something to be celebrated not for how it looks but for what it can do.  You are strong.  You are fast.  You outrun the boys.  And you love yourself for it. 

You know how we like to read your favorite Psalm together sometimes?  You say that you don’t know why, but it makes you feel calm.   

  

“God, my shepherd!


I don’t need a thing.


You have bedded me down in lush meadows,


you find me quiet pools to drink from.


True to your word,


you let me catch my breath


and send me in the right direction.

Even when the way goes through


    Death Valley,


I’m not afraid


when you walk at my side…

Your beauty and love chase after me


every day of my life.”

Psalm 23 (MSG)

Know this, Baby Girl- God walks with you through every valley- even middle school.  Especially middle school!  God’s beauty and God’s love will be chasing you, pursuing you, and seeking you around every corner.  Look for it.  I promise you will find it.  You already know you are awesome, but the only way for your confidence to be unwavering is for it to be rooted deep in God’s love.  So, I’ll keep praying and you keep running fast, and we will trust God to take care of the rest. 

Waiting For Fire

I have been in almost every type of Christian worship setting you can imagine. I grew up in large and small Pentecostal churches. The kinds with praise bands and loud organs and drums and preachers who weren't really preaching until they were shouting.  I spent many summer nights in revival services at my grandmother's South Georgia church. I've seen people dance, fall out, jump up and down, and shout in worship. (For the record, I have never seen a snake in a church.) I've seen people weep in church as they pour their broken hearts out to God. I've seen lives changed in church. I've seen healing take place in church. I've had moments where you just knew, with every fiber of your being, that something sacred was near. Something bigger than big and realer than real. Something from whom you cannot hide. 

(My Grandma, who taught us all how to pray)

I've also spent years and years in more "respectable" churches. I've read liturgies. I've recited creeds. I've stood. I've kneeled. I've broken bread, taken communion, and partaken of the Eucharist. I've celebrated infant baptisms and adult baptisms.  I've lit candles. I've walked the labyrinth.  I've gone round and round the church calendar and found comfort in its rhythms. White, red, green, purple, white,  green, purple, white, red....

(After this post, they may ask for my M.T.S. degree back)

I love when ancient worship is resurrected from our past. When I hear time tested words of faith come to life again, I feel anchored to the mysterious and timeless Body of Christ:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds,

God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten and not made; of the very same nature of the Father, by Whom all things came into being, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.

                    -(from the Nicene Creed of 381)

What would it have been like to recite this creed in the fourth century? To stand in worship with those who knew that to publicly declare faith in the Nazarene could be their very own death sentence?  (I guess to answer that question, I need only travel to other parts of the world.) I believe there is a richness hidden in many long lost liturgies and hymns that are waiting to be rediscovered by new generations of church goers.

 I often wonder why God allowed me to become such an ecclesiastical hybrid. I sometimes get jealous of people who are comfortable with their church and its style and feel completely at home wherever they are. Because truthfully, I don't ever feel completely at home in any church. Not really.  I usually leave church feeling like something was missing. Too much of some things, not enough of other things.  If anyone has found a charismatic-liturgical-emergent-diverse-inclusive-justice oriented-church with a decidedly Wesleyan theology, then please point me in its direction.  

What I am coming to see is that we often worship our worship more than God's own self.  We take pride in it. We define ourselves by it. But really, true worship is an intangible thing that we cannot create on our own. Nor can we claim to "do it right."  Nothing we bring to it makes our worship better than someone else's worship. Not our style, not our liturgy, not our lack of liturgy, not our theology, not our politics, not even our diversity.  

Christians like to celebrate Pentecost Sunday as the birthday of the church. Some people may not realize that the church didn't begin at Easter.  Jesus died and then he wasn't dead and lots of people got to see this newly resurrected Jesus in the flesh. That's a pretty amazing story. Enough of a story for people to start talking. You would think something like that- a crucified carpenter/ rabbi who is no longer dead- would send people running far and wide just to tell what they had witnessed.  But that is not what happened. They didn't go anywhere. They didn't write any songs. They didn't preach any sermons. They did nothing except pray together.  (I think the Quakers have this part figured out.)

Then God moved in a big way. We all know the story- rushing wind, tongues of fire, people speaking different languages. In the old days, God's presence among God's people was called the Shekinah.  The Shekinah was the visible dwelling place of God's Spirit. It was wind and fire and unapproachable glory.  (For those who think God is always a "He"- Shekinah was a feminine word in the Hebrew language.)  When Moses saw the burning bush- Shekinah.  When Jacob wrestled all night with the stranger and walked away blessed but limping- Shekinah.  In the temple, only the priests could come near Her and only on the holiest of holy days. Until that unexpected Pentecost day, when a rag-tag group of Jesus followers decided to gather together and pray. They didn't know what they were waiting for. How could they? Maybe they thought Jesus would reappear. That's what I would have prayed for. He said he was coming back, right? How could they know that God would rush in? How could they anticipate the complete unraveling of every barrier they had ever known between the Holy One and themselves?  They couldn't because they didn't know what we know now.  They didn't know that the Holy Spirit had decided it was time.  It was time for the church to be born and it was time for true worship to begin.  It was time to redefine Shekinah. 

The church was born when those who were gathered together became dwelling places for the Spirit.   I don't understand it, but this is what I know- the church was birthed not in our worship but in spite of it.  True worship does not begin with us.  We don't plan it. We don't create it. We don't even get to define it. No matter how we like to sing, chant, recite, or pray- it is all meaningless if it does not make room for God's own self to breathe, speak, and move right in.  

Worship isn't about us or our ideas about God, and it certainly isn't an elaborate production created to please God. Worship is what brings us together and centers us around God. Every single time Christians gather together, we should be listening for the wind. We should be looking for the fire. We should be expecting the living, breathing, resurrected God to show up once again in a real and unimagined way.  Because that is what we believe, right? Don't we believe God is still working and acting to bring about good things here on earth and that God is present in all things, big and small? Then why shouldn't we also expect God to show up when we go to church?  Why have we stopped looking for the Shekinah?

That is where I want to worship- with people who come together like those confused and lost disciples came to the Upper Room, bringing nothing but their hurt, their fear, their brokenness, and their disappointment.   People who gather together for no other reason than to carry each other's burdens straight to the heart of God.  People who remember hope.  People who come to church every time expecting the unexpected.  And most importantly, people who are not afraid of wind and fire.

Who's the Boss?

From the second we first met Carter in China he has been telling us what to do. Literally. The first few minutes and hours with him were filled with his loud commands (in Chinese) for us to "Go out there!" and "No! Over there!"  We think he was trying to direct us back to the van that had just hours before taken him away from his foster home and delivered him to us. While he is much more happy, hardly ever angry, and usually very silly and playful most of the time, he still sometimes acts like this is all one big play date and he is the one in charge.

Adopting a toddler is particularly challenging because traumatized children will often deal with the disruptive or abusive events in their past by wanting to take control of their new environment.  Taking control allows them a false sense of security and keeps them from relying too much on their new caregivers. This is a survival technique for children who have learned at a very young age that grown ups are unreliable at best, hurtful at worst. 

Add to this the natural developmental instincts of a two year old. Toddlers are pre-programmed in their very nature to begin to establish autonomy and independence at this age. For most two year olds, these efforts at independence are steps that parents should applaud. However, for a newly adopted two year old who has already experienced multiple layers of abandonment and a long string of different care givers, what they need to be learning now is dependence, the exact opposite of what their developmental instincts are telling them to do. 

All of this can coalesce into behaviors that are what I call a "toddler on steroids". Temper tantrums are triggered more easily and last longer. Sometimes he will wake up from a nap completely in a rage and we haven't figured out if he is having nightmares or just waking up disoriented and confused. Sometimes he still will be overcome with waves of grief and sadness that seem to come out of nowhere. If he sees food that he wants and we don't give it to him immediately, he will cry, fuss, and then begin to plead "Food! Please! Mommy, hungry! Food!"  (Imagine being at a large picnic while you are standing in line and this is what your child does, over and over and over while complete strangers stare at you wondering why your child seems so hungry and desperate for food.) Most two year olds don't understand waiting, but then add to that a history of hunger and neglect and this is what you get. All of this is normal for a newly adopted toddler and none of it makes us love him any less. 

What has become one of my greatest pet peeves, though, is the well meaning comment, "He's just acting like a two year old."  Well, yes and no. His behavior is normal for a two year old but his responses to stress, new situations, or even just not getting his way are more extreme and are often accompanied by an attempt to pretend like we are non-existent. He doesn't want to be held, he doesn't want us to talk to him, and he will do everything in his power to avoid looking at us. In his anger, we become strangers again. 

Yesterday we had one such tantrum that lasted for over an hour. All because I told him to apologize to his sister for hitting her. He refused to say "sorry" and I would not let him out of my lap until he did. So we sat there. Me holding him. Him screaming and kicking. Me trying not to cry. Him refusing to look at me or say the one word he knew he needed to say. Eventually I started to second guess the whole thing. Why did he need to apologize? Does he even understand what I am asking him to say? But I knew he did because just the day before he had said, "Sorry, Cammy!" several times when we asked him.  

    (He fell asleep screaming only to wake up and start screaming again.)

Just when I thought we would both be glued together forever, he saw his lunch being set out on his high chair, and stopped crying. He turned to Cammy, smiled at her and said as sweetly as he could, "Sorry, Cammy!"  Just like that he was smiling and happy and all was well in his world. 

Somehow our long and drawn out battle of wills had reestablished the correct order of roles in his universe and he came out of it much more calm and content. I think he needed to push the boundaries as far as he could, just to see if this new Mommy really has sticking power. Children may think they want to be the boss, but deep down their little hearts want someone else to take charge. 

What we are starting to see is that Carter needs less choices and more structure. Instead of saying, "Do you want to go play on the swings?" we are now telling him, "We are going to play on the swings now."  Structure, schedules, and routines help provide a framework of security that he has never truly possessed.  Instead of having him learn to do tasks all by himself, we are encouraging him to "help" Mommy or Daddy. Yesterday he saw me struggling to carry a bag of groceries inside and he said, "Mommy need help?"  My heart almost burst right then and there. 

All of this is meant to reinforce the message that we are his parents and he doesn't have to parent himself anymore. We will provide all that he needs and then some. It is love in action, saying over an over,  "It is ok now. Relax. We've got you and we aren't letting go."

I am not sharing any of this because I want sympathy or because I want to scare anyone away from adoption. We are blessed beyond measure with this beautiful boy who fills our days with more joy than we ever expected. Whenever anyone asks me how Carter is doing, I always respond with a sincere smile and an enthusiastic, "He is amazing!" But I don't want anyone to think that the road we are on is without struggle. The task of parenting any child, biological or adopted, is not easy and we never thought it would be. What I also know is that as difficult as it has been for Justin and myself, the last three months have been infinitely more difficult for Carter. In spite of all he has lost and all the changes he has faced, he remains so very brave and generous with his love.  Love is not easy and does not come without cost. True, deep, abiding love is always forged through pain and tears. That is the beauty of it. 

Thanks But No Thanks, Ebola

If you haven’t heard of the Ebola virus, then you must be living in a cave.  If you are living in a cave, you should be prepared for some of us to come join you soon because Ebola virus scares us all and such paranoia may send me to the hills. 

Ebola is not a new virus.  Relatively speaking, it is new to humans, but it has been around long enough for most of us to know about it.  We’ve heard stories about this deadly contagious disease that mostly existed in remote African villages, causing many of its victims to die in a truly horrific way- while bleeding out of their orifices.  But most of us haven’t feared Ebola because we never imagined it would spread and we never imagined a patient infected with this deadly virus would actually touch ground on U.S. soil. (Which is where they belonged- at home, being cared for by the best doctors we had to offer.)

Yet here we are, in a state of virtual panic because Ebola is spreading in Africa and Americans working over there are contracting it and we don’t have a cure or a vaccine to protect us. (Never mind a cure or vaccine for those who are facing it in real life.)

This is what I think- Ebola is terrifying us because we have forgotten what it is like to fear disease.  We think of deadly infectious diseases as things of the past.  We walk around our twenty-first century world feeling secure in the knowledge that modern medicine can rid us of most infections that in the not too distant past were nothing less than deadly.  Perhaps the biggest fault with vaccinations is that they do their job too well.  Children rarely become ill with any type of life threatening infection.  Rarely are they so sick that a quick visit to the doctor won’t help.   Antibiotics are cheap and readily available and we use them like a talisman to ward off infections even before we get sick.  I wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve had a parent request an antibiotic for their child because “We are going on vacation this weekend and I just don’t want them to be sick while we are at the beach.”  

We’ve forgotten how summer time would often bring waves of panic among communities as children would go out for an afternoon swim at the local pool and come home infected with polio.  Most young parents today have never even heard of an iron lung.  We don’t remember the heartbreak of a pregnant mother who contracts Rubella and knows with almost certainty that her unborn child will now be born severely malformed.  We haven’t lived through an influenza outbreak so bad that it wipes out one third of our population just like that.  Infant mortality is a rare tragedy today, and that is a good thing.  We forget that our town graveyards are speckled with the tiny unmarked graves of all the babies who died too soon from diseases like whooping cough, diphtheria, measles, and meningitis.  We forget that before the introduction of modern medicine and vaccinations, most women saw only half of the children they gave birth to survive past childhood.  And now, in an irony of ironies, mothers hold their babies close and refuse to give them vaccines, thinking that by doing so, they are somehow keeping them "safe."

It is human nature to forget the horrors of our past.  That is just how we survive.   But if we don’t start remembering some of the fear, these diseases will come back to haunt us once again.   So, if you are going to be afraid of Ebola, that’s ok.  It scares me a little, too.  But not as much as a world where children are no longer vaccinated against polio, or measles, or tetanus, or….take your pick.  Truthfully, they are all pretty scary to me.  

For Emma

Photo: "The Third Tree" by Trey Ratcliff 

“But blessed is the man who trusts me, God,


the woman who sticks with God.


They’re like trees replanted in Eden,


putting down roots near the rivers—


Never a worry through the hottest of summers,


never dropping a leaf,


Serene and calm through droughts,


bearing fresh fruit every season.”

Jeremiah 17:7-8 (MSG)

You shared this scripture on Instagram yesterday.  When I saw it I told you how much it meant to me, too.  I showed you my bracelet and said, “See, I wear this silver tree on my wrist to remind me every day.” 

I realize now that I should have said more.  I should have told WHY those old, poetic words from far gone days are burned into my soul.  I should have said, “They changed me forever.” 

I suppose I didn’t want to sound silly.  Who does that?  Who lives their life every day as if all of it is one big metaphor for a single verse in scripture? Something that was written a few thousand years ago and isn’t really about me at all.  I know that and so do you.  We took the same Hebrew Bible class at the same seminary in the exact same classroom (though over a decade apart.)  Smart Christians don’t read into scripture things that aren’t there.  We don’t take it apart verse by verse and apply the ones we like, discard the ones we don’t.  Smart Christians understand historical context and ancient Mesopotamian world-views and smart Christians don’t extrapolate twenty-first century meaning from words that weren’t written for us or even about us.  (Secretly, I’m finding myself becoming less and less a smart Christian and that’s ok with me.)

If I had been brave, this is what I would have said:  This scripture has transformed me.  In a way that defies explanation, these words have been Spirit words, holy and alive, redefining my own sense of self. 

Blessed is she who trusts in me, God….she will be like a tree planted by the water, sending out roots in the stream….

It hit me like a brick one day.  Trusting in God means standing still.  It means that we cease striving.  We stop wondering where we are going and if we are moving in the right direction.  We don’t think of ourselves as always one wrong decision away from not serving God.  We stop defining ourselves by what we do, what we believe, or where we go. 

Blessed is she who trusts in me, God….she will be like a tree planted by the water, sending out roots in the stream….

If we are like a tree that is planted in God, then we are no longer trying to find ourselves in our husband, our children, our career, or our home.  Instead, we find ourselves in the deep, deep mystery of God’s grace.  And bit by bit our roots go further into that beautiful abyss of love that is God.   

Blessed is she who trusts in me, God….she will be like a tree planted by the water, sending out roots in the stream….

So we stand by the Living Waters and decide that this place, the heart of God is going to be our dwelling place. 

We plant ourselves next to Jesus himself and let our roots go down deep, deeper, and deeper still. 

Then, before we realize it, something beautiful begins to happen…

We begin to stand taller. 

We grow stronger. 

Storms come and go, winds blow, but we are not afraid.

We are not afraid because we have been transformed into daughters of God Most High and we know there is no greater place to be than where we are right now.  No better person to be than the person we are right now.  No task more important than simply growing in God’s grace.  

Never a worry through the hottest of summers,


never dropping a leaf,


Serene and calm through droughts,


bearing fresh fruit every season.

This is what I wish I had known all those years ago when I was where you are now and I am sorry I didn’t share this last night, but you know how it is…we had a very important TV show to watch and watching TV is infinitely easier than sharing your heart.