MOM LIFE, NEW SEASON

I have been a mom for over 30 years. Wow!

My kids are all grown up. They are kind, wonderful, beautiful people. They really are the coolest, most interesting people I know.

But I don't get to spend as much time with my kids as I once did. We no longer share living space 24/7. More and more, I am just Camille...no kids in tow.

Things I am learning, things I am un-learning in this strange new season of life:

I do not have to eat garbage. Used to, I'd make a meal off half-eaten peanut butter sandwiches, half-eaten containers of yogurt, the most burned grilled cheese (because, to tell the truth, I burned them all!), and the leftovers from last week that, obviously, no one else wanted to eat.

Where did I get the idea that "Mom" = "garbage disposal"? Probably sprouted from some distortion of the importance of not wasting food (because food costs money). Reduce-Reuse-Recycle is a great strategy for reducing household waste, but it does not mean Mom has to eat what would otherwise go into the trash can.

It is okay for me to eat things I enjoy; it's okay for other people at my table to eat these things, too, even if these foods are not their personal favorites. It is reasonable, as a wife and mother, to want to cook food my family enjoys. But over the years, I let "Umm, it's okay, I guess, but it's not my favorite" become a death-sentence for some of my favorite recipes.

How long has it been since I made linguine with clam sauce? Picadillo with cornbread? Fried chicken livers? (Yes, I am a fan of fried chicken livers.)

I am learning that it is okay to prepare foods I personally enjoy, even if others do not, and it is reasonable to expect others at the table to receive these foods graciously.

How clean my house is...is only as big a deal to me as I make it. I really do prefer a clean, tidy space to live in. But sometimes, other things in life are more important to me than housework, and those things get time priority. When the floors get so nasty that I hate to walk on them, then I will knock something off the calendar so I can sweep and mop.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: if the clutter and dirt don't bother me, they are not a problem; if they do, I can do something about it. I don't "keep house" for other people. This is my home, not theirs. Visitors are always welcome, but they are visitors...not home inspectors. Welcome to the mess!

How clean my house is...is actually not that big of a deal to other people. And if it is, they are more than welcome to pick up a dust cloth or broom and get to work. Won't hurt my feelings at all!

I am under no obligation to conform to the fantastic expectations other people have of me. Wife, homeschool mom, homemaker, writer...people conjure up cozy, romantic, completely out-of-touch-with-reality ideas of what my life looks like, then I get this crazy notion that it would be wrong for me to disappoint them.

Yes, I love home-baked bread and vegetables fresh from the garden; but I also love Cheetos and Diet Coke. I love Austen, Tolkien, and Rowling...and The Princess Bride, Napoleon Dynamite, and Nacho Libre. I lament the immodesty of our culture; I wear jeggings and yoga pants. I am transported by hymns and praise songs; I dance to Bruno Mars and Meghan Trainor.

Go figure.

I am learning to be comfortable with the idea that people can like me for who I really am, or they can not like me. At any rate, I am no longer preoccupied with people liking me for someone I am not.

I do not have to conform to my own unrealistic expectations, either. Somewhere over the years, I got the crazy notion that, if I wanted to be a good wife and mother, I should not get angry, feel pain deeply, express strong opinions or preferences, pursue personal goals, care for my own emotional needs, etc. I thought these things were expressions of selfishness. Instead, I should always be strong, be patient, sacrifice, hold it all together, persevere, be grateful, be content...even if I really wasn't.

The very worst lies are the lies we tell ourselves...and then believe.

In this new season, instead of thinking in terms of "should" and "ought" and crazy ideals, I am more prone to think: "Where am/who am I right now? How do I want to grow?"

About clothes...

I do not shop for clothes for myself. Shopping involves two things I dislike: spending money (always a no-no) - and - trying on clothes and looking at myself in a mirror. I HATE clothes shopping. Instead of shopping, I wear clothes that come out of black bags, clothes passed on by an older lady at church or by a friend of a friend of a neighbor.

Let me say right here: I am so grateful for black bags! Without them, I'd have gone naked the past couple of decades, and trust me, NOBODY would have wanted that.

With the recent onset of cooler weather, I realized I needed some warmer clothes. Normally at this point, I would have started hoping for a black bag to show up on my front porch. But instead, I asked the youngest, who possesses ninja shopping skills, to meet me after school to go shopping. For me.

And I bought clothes.

That I picked out.

For myself.

And I like them.

Shopping wasn't painful at all, not even writing the check.

So, yeah, that's something new, too. 😜

CHERISHING THE ORDINARY

It's been a long day. For me: work, grocery shopping, laundry, dinner. For my youngest: school, work, and now homework.

I love a quiet evening at home, just me and this chicken. Upstairs in the office (aka "the boys' room"), she is working on a speech for Friday's Public Speaking class, while I catch up on emails, book-keeping, and writing assignments. She's drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows (more marshmallows than chocolate, BTW - nom, nom, nom); for me, wine.

As we sit across the table from each other in the glow of our respective laptops, work is interrupted frequently by short bursts of conversation and laughter.

"What do you think about...?"

"Hey, listen to this..."

This moment is precious not because it is extraordinary, but because it is ordinary...and it will soon be gone.

UNDONE

Because He's still here and still listening...
(and because I haven't had time or brain energy to do much writing lately!)

UNDONE
(originally posted June 3, 2015)

Two thirty a.m. and I'm lying awake (something related to menopause, I think), looking out the window at the night sky and the fireflies blinking on and off in the hay field. The house is quiet and the bed is oh-so-comfortable. This is one of my very favorite times to pray...

I am grateful that God is awake and listening at 2:30 in the morning. I am touched that He makes a quiet, dark, beautiful place to meet with me. I am astounded that the same God who holds the enormous, flaming, far-away stars in the night sky condescends to slip into a messy bedroom in a rural farmhouse for an hour of intimate conversation.

I pray for my kids, and my grandkids. For my church and my church family (King and Virginia, you are my special people today!) and for folks on the other side of the sea. For things heavy on my heart and my mind. Eventually, I drift off to sleep again, encouraged and strengthened with the confidence that God is near, and that He is sovereign and good and He loves me very much.

A few hours later, I am sitting down at the kitchen counter with my first cup of coffee. No one else is up and stirring about yet, and the house is still and quiet. Let's see, where was I...flip, flip, flip...2 Chronicles. NOT my favorite book of the Bible, and yet, reading through a tedious list of names I can't begin to pronounce, I am once again reminded of God's faithfulness to his faithless children. Reminded of God's big, scary, dangerous, life-altering, never-tiring, ever-pursuing love. And I pray for my kids, and my grandkids...

Much later in the day, I am driving to town for a meeting, alone in a funky-smelling green mini-van that badly needs to be vacuumed, soaking up the warm sunshine that beams through the windshield. My thoughts turn to a young man - someone dear to me - who seemingly has no desire to know God, no interest in Jesus's great love for broken, sinful people like us, and I am saddened. "Father..." I need someone to talk to, someone to share this burden.

And then it occurs to me...

Lying in bed at two-dark-thirty in the morning, at the kitchen counter with a steaming cup of coffee, and now, driving down the four-lane toward Union City, this has all been one long on-going conversation. Interrupted by sleep and exercise class and cooking breakfast for the gang at home...interrupted, but never broken.

"God, you are still here! You are still listening!" We were picking up right where we had left off, before the pause to review Helen's math lesson and the conversation with Tom about what he is working on on the Ranchero, and my rush to get out the door on time.

Nobody on Earth meets me like that. Nobody on Earth listens like that. Nobody on Earth loves me like that.

Is it any wonder that I adore Him?

VERY WELL CONTENT

Do you ever feel like God is trying to tell you something?

Wednesday evening, I finished reading Rosaria Butterfield's book The Gospel Comes with a House Key: Practicing Radically Ordinary Hospitality in Our Post-Christian World. HIGHLY recommend, not because we should all be and live just like the Butterfields, but because Rosaria challenges readers to think outside our comfort zones. We all need that kind of challenge occasionally, to expose our blind spots and shake us from our complacency.

On my Author Facebook page, I shared this quote from Rosaria's book:

"Grace does not make the hard thing go away; grace illumines the hard thing with eternal meaning and purpose. Grace gives you company in your affliction, in Christ himself and in the family of God."

(Amen, and amen! After a difficult week, my body and heart weary, I wonder again how on earth people negotiate the grit of this life without Jesus. I cannot imagine. And can I say right here HOW MUCH I LOVE MY SISTERS AND BROTHERS IN CHRIST, those faithful friends who pray for me and with me when I am afflicted and distressed, and how thankful I am for a sweet Christian counselor who shares my burdens every week?! Thank you, Jesus, that you do not save us to do this life alone. Thank you that you saved us into a family of faith!)

So, as I was saying, Wednesday, I finished Rosaria's excellent book.

Yesterday, Thursday, I sat on the front porch swing and prayed for inspiration for next week's article for the newspaper. Prayed and swayed, listened to the birds, watched the grandkids playing in the yard, sipped my tea, prayed and swayed.

God brought this verse to mind: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me," Philippians 4:13.

I thought about the week just past, its challenges, frustrations, and hurts. And I thought about how often I've tried to use Phil. 4:13 as a mantra against hardship, failure, heartbreak, and defeat. As if emphatically praying "I can do all things" guarantees me success, victory, peace, joy.

I thought about Paul, writing those great words of encouragement even as he was under house arrest, facing a trial and, if convicted, death. "I can do all things." Paul wasn't saying God would save him from persecution and an unjust death. He was saying, "With Christ, whether I live or die, I am well content."

My weekly newspaper column is not a religious column. It is a general interest column. But thinking about my own struggles this past week - and the struggle to rest well in Jesus in the midst of them - and thinking about the daunting, real-life struggles faced by so many of my readers, I wrote about Philippians 4:13, about being content in Jesus, even when life hurts.

I saved my first draft of the article, unsure if I would submit it for next week's column. Really, God? Is this what you want me to write?

And then this morning, over on her Author Facebook page, Emily Akin shared this blog post by Lynn Dove: Most Misinterpreted Scripture Verses - Philippians 4:13. Given that I had just written an article about the same passage the day before, I clicked on the link. I was curious to read Lynn's perspective on this often misused verse.

Do you ever feel like God is trying to tell you something?

Rosaria Butterfield's book -
An article composed on a porch swing -
A blog post shared by a friend -

Sometimes, when I am particularly weary and sore, I am tempted to wonder if God really loves me. But when He speaks with such precision into the details of my life - and does so over and over again - I cannot long entertain such foolish thoughts.

Yes, He loves me.

And with that, I am very well content.

* * *

"...I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned to secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me." Philippians 4:11b-13

HOW BIG IS THIS SALVATION?

"Son," he said, "ye cannot in your present state understand eternity...That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, 'No future bliss can make up for it,' not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even the agony in to a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say, 'Let me have but this and I'll take the consequences,' little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin.

"Both processes begin even before death. The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven; the bad man's past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness.

"And that is why...the Blessed will say, 'We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven,' and the Lost, 'We were always in Hell.' And both will speak truly." - C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

* * * 

If I believe that Jesus redeems me and saves me for the eternity which yawns on the other side of this life - and He does - that is a glorious promise and a great assurance.

But I need more.

If I believe that Jesus redeems me and saves me today, when I have today injured another image-bearer, fallen yet again into that old sin, doubted the great promise that God truly forgives and truly loves the repentant sinner - and He does - that gives me comfort and healing and hope. Even as I fall broken at the foot of the cross for the umpteenth time, it gives me strength to stand and face a new day with the confidence that "Yes, Lord, I am yours, beloved and secure. Help me today to think and speak and live as befits a daughter of the King."

But I need more.

What about yesterday? What about last month? last year?

What about the decades of sin, my own and those committed against me? What about the hurt and the hard layers of scar tissue, running deep in my soul? What about sin-twisted coping mechanisms, learned over a lifetime, so well practiced now that they are reflex and I have little, if any, conscious awareness of them?

When I look back, I am deeply grieved by my own brokenness and by how my brokenness has shattered others.

What about the PAST, Lord: Is it too late to save what has already been? The pages are turned; the story is told - how can what has already been written be saved and sanctified for your glory and for my good and the good of the people I love?

Does the Gospel have power to redeem the past?

My story - The Story of Camille - began 54 years ago in a small hospital in rural Northwest Tennessee. Actually it began before that, with a young country lawyer and a pretty preacher's daughter. No...go back further, to that preacher and the strong-willed, strong-boned woman he married, and hundreds of miles away, to the hog farmer and his schoolteacher wife.

No, further still...

To German and Scots-Irish immigrants who, desperate for religious freedom and a future, braved an unknown continent on the far side of the sea...

Further...

Go WAY back, as far back as, well, as forever...

Ephesians 1:4 tells me that God was writing My Story "before the foundation of the world."

Long before my story became My Story some 54 years ago, as far back as the dawn of time and then further, it was God's Story, the one He began writing before my first ancestor walked this earth. That means...

Before the first page of My Story was written, there was the mercy of God, wrapped up in the Gospel, the One Great Story, of which My Story is simply a re-telling.

All of my past - the good and the bad, the bright and the broken, the joyful and that which causes me deep, deep sorrow - God has been writing all of it all along, and through ALL of it, He has been weaving the beautiful, unifying, redeeming theme of his glorious Gospel.

So, back to my question: Can the Gospel redeem and sanctify my past?

YES.

Because God's Story, the Gospel, is older than My Story, and its life-giving blood pulses through ALL of My Story, past-present-future, beginning to end.

I needed to take a few minutes to remember that today.

* * *

I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. - Jeremiah 31:3