The List.

"This isn't going to happen."

Rachel Baker. Circa 2000.  On a grassy knoll in between my freshman dorm and his.  Breaking his heart.  Without a candlestick.

"We'll see about that."

Greg Hamann.  Circa bleach-blonde-hair-sticking-out-of-a-visor-era.  Calling my bluff.

I can pretty much boil down our entire pre-dating relationship to this single conversation.  We hashed out this talk many ways, in many settings, with various hairdos for well over a year.  Greg, with a resolve only God knew, pursued me in a way that was unparalleled.  I couldn't figure out why.  I was a hot mess of contradictions, pimples, and holy determination.

The first time Greg and I took the obligatory walk around Judson's loop he tackled me to the ground somewhere around the sand volleyball courts.  I didn't know whether to scream, laugh, or pee my pants.  I think I did a little of each.  I was thrown off by how forward he was. I kind of liked it.  We sat in the cold sand, looked up at the stars, and talked about things I didn't usually talk about.  He wanted to know about my family. It was refreshing. Greg was very honest about where He was at.  With God, with himself, and with me. 

Somewhere between the sand volleyball courts, the late night walks, the rocks he threw at my dorm window just for me to open up so he could tell me he was thinking of me, the notes I'd find in my campus mailbox, and the way he unabashedly declared his intentions of winning my heart...I realized....he already had it.  I was slowly giving myself over to the notion of a future with one Mr. Greg Hamann.  

Just one thing.  There was The List.

Somewhere, in my infinite youth group teenage wisdom, I had created The List.  The List was a detailed account of character qualities and physical qualities that I wanted in a future husband. You guys.  Don't judge.  It was the thing back in 1998.  Also, my best friend came to college with a plastic Cinderella slipper on a necklace.  Waiting for her prince charming.  So there.

The List.  My future husband must have brown hair.  Blue eyes. Working towards full time ministry.  Guitar skills and vocal talent preferable.  Willingness to move across the country, across the world for the Kingdom.    Must outfit himself entirely from American Eagle (stop it. I know.).  He must be able to sit down with my dad and have heavy theological conversations.  He probably shouldn't be too attached to family.  He must not weigh less than me. Ha.   He needs to lead me spiritually.  He needs to be intense.  Fit in with my ministry minded friends.

Greg.  Blonde hair.  Bleached blonde, in fact.  Blue eyes. Marketing major. Was still figuring out the Jesus thing.  Athlete extraordinaire.  Had never held a guitar in his life.  Wore a thrift store bowling jacket with Otis on the nametag.  Told me on our first date that he would never move away from his family.  Skinny as a rail.  Had never prayed with a girl before me. Greg was not complex. Sure of himself, yet humble in a way I had not yet known.  We also ran in, er, different social circles at Judson.

So why, for the love, was I falling in love with him? On paper, literally, we didn't make sense.   Many of my ministry minded friends didn't understand our connection.  I know many of his teammates didn't really grasp how we made sense.  I went back and forth.  Greg remained steady in his feelings for me.  To this day, neither of us really know how or why he did.  But God.

But God.  I remember, methodically and painfully, God undid some of the benchmarks I had set for the future Mr. Rachel Baker. He replaced them with His truths, His standards, and His ideal for me.  I am a little slow on the uptake, but I began to realize how Greg Hamann was my new List.  Best. Decision.  Ever.

Fast forward twelve years later.  

Greg and I served dinner with our small group at a local PADS shelter.  It was my first time serving, but Greg has regularly helped out with the homeless in our community.  I was absolutely floored by how many of the homeless knew my husband, shook hands with him, asked him to pray, and asked him about his family.  I stood in a stupor as my husband rallied forty plus of the marginalized population to pray over our meal, and how he quietly and calmly diffused tense situations, broke up fights, and gave to whomever had need.

My husband had never looked so hot to me.

Um, and I was an awkward fool.  I stammered around the homeless, nervous about saying the wrong things or making too much eye contact.  I was super uncomfortable when a teenage mom-to-be was crying on my shoulder about her place in life.  I was like...do you want a kleenex?  I'm sorry that you are homeless, pregnant, and that your husband doesn't want to be with you anymore. Want a brownie?  

Here I am.  I am most comfortable within the four walls of a church.  I speak fluent Christianese.  I know how to lead worship, prayer meetings, small groups and I can change a nursery diaper like no other.  Doing life with other believers is my first language.  I am so confident of myself, and of God when I am inside a church building.  I know, like three people, who aren't Christians.    Take me outside those four walls, and my confidence is shaken.  I'm so humbled.  And ever-learning.  

And my husband.  Who didn't meet The List.  Who shakes hands and shares prayers with the least of these.  Who serves and doesn't need a soul to know about it.  Who quietly shares his faith with those in his workplace.  Who just does.  Outside the four walls of the church.  He doesn't know Christianese.  Or if he does, he doesn't use it.  Greg has a simple, active faith.  While I am talking about what God is teaching me in a coffee shop, he is handing a coffee to the homeless man outside my window.  

I came home that night earlier than Greg.  I sunk to my knees, crying and thanking God for my husband. And feeling a fool.

I have so much to learn from this man.

I am so thankful that God doesn't keep lists for us.  I am so glad he shook my silly nineteen year old self into realizing His Word is actually true.   He has plans to prosper us.  If only I could learn to let go more, of my check-lists, and my ideals, and my hopes.  

I know, that offered up to God, in fear and trembling, He will take my check-lists and transform them into something so so so so beyond what I could try to imagine.   


“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” 
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

I got 99 problems, but Seven is not one.

I had one of those talks with my sister, Adrienne, that only sisters can have.  We were discussing a book I've been asked to review, Seven: An Experiential Mutiny against Excess, by Jen Hatmaker.  I LOVE me some Jen Hatmaker.  Like, let-me-inhale-everything-she's-ever-written-or-spoken LOVE HER.  I was so excited to write a review on Seven because I deeply admire her ability to convict others towards active holiness through her honesty, humility, and ridiculous sense of humor.  

Ok, backdrop. Seven is about taking a month at a time to root out the excess in our Christian lives. Month one begins with food, where Hatmaker committed to only eating seven foods for 31 days.  From there, she reduced her wardrobe to seven articles of clothing for one month.  Then possessions.  Social media.  Waste.  Spending.  The intense Seven experience was end-capped with month seven: a fast from the busy life.  During this month, Jen and her family practiced Seven Sacred Pauses (Macrina Wiederkehr), where they made space for prayer and meditation seven times a day.  Just wow.

Ok, personal reaction.  Um, the book made me feel like crap.  I felt like I had just finished reading the account of a saint.  Seriously. I read about how she drove her family downtown monthly to barbecue for the homeless of Austin, and how she took part in a community gardening initiative that benefited the marginalized.   Bought organic. Had a compost. Created a storage room with her friends in the off chance a refugee might need some bed sheets or a night stand.  Girlfriend does all the fasting. Feeds all the people.  Prays all the prayers.  

Book review nothing.  Life review: ugh.

This overwhelming feeling of inadequacy is so not new for me.  I wish.  I felt it when reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan.  Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis.  Pretty much any book chronicling a life chasing Jesus.  It's a familiar feeling; this holy despair.  An unparalleled tension.  I feel ready to have a full blown panic attack, worried that I am not living a life set apart enough for Jesus.  I look at these authors and how the Spirit has led them on these insane journeys, and has also gifted them with the use of words.  I feel so small.

So, my normal reaction to these convictions?  Do I pray more?  No.  Do I take out my Bible and study it, waiting for the Spirit to lead me on my own journey? Do I ask Jesus to lead me into what He has for my little piece of His story?  Not so much.

Instead...I get all cray cray.

After reading Seven, I partook in recycling freakishness.  I started interrogating the nutrition labels at Trader Joe's.  I went cold turkey with Facebook for a few weeks.  It's cool. I only missed out on three Christmas parties.  I would almost smirk as I drove straight past my old shopping grounds and straight into the parking lot of our local thrift store.  Stupid people who shop at Gap.  Darn the man.  I sat my four year old down and explained how we wouldn't buy chocolate from Hershey anymore because they bought cocoa from farms in Africa that enforced child labor.  She just stared at me blankly and asked, "So can I have my M&M's now?"  I maniacally demanded my family rest during the Sabbath.  My one year old would be throwing her pootie pie diapers down the stairs at the end of a Sunday because she was so bored.

I did it.  I went all commando on saintly. 

For like three weeks.  Slowly, my former life crept back in.  I (gasp!) threw a plastic water bottle away.  I caved in and ate a whole row of Reeses Peanut Butter Cups.  I drove by a homeless person without a ready-made lunch in my backseat.  I bought a shirt at the Gap.  On clearance.  But still.  I felt like a failure. 

This is where a moment of clarity came through a discussion with my little sis.  I was explaining how I become three parts convicted and one part annoyed after reading books like Seven.  How I feel like I get wrapped up in other peoples stories and convictions, and I can't separate who God's called me to be from whom God has called these authors to be.  Adrienne, in her wisdom that still sometimes sidelines me, reminded me that the spirit of religion resides in both sides of the Christian spectrum.  Then came this beauty:

Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
    as much as in obeying the Lord?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
    and to heed is better than the fat of rams

                                                            1 Sam 15:22

Boom.  Thank you Samuel, prophet of old.  Sometimes, I get all caught up in the doing.  In what others are doing.  I see God moving in their lives and I want to join, so I can be a part of His story.  What I forget is that I NEED to be obedient to the life God has called me to.  That I might have another plot in His story. Sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice isn't what most delights my Savior.  It's obedience to what He has made known to me.

I'm not quite sure what that is yet.  I do know this:  while many convictions posed by Hatmaker in Seven have taken residence in my heart, her story is not my story.  I know that God wants to make my story known to me.  To all of us.  He is so capable. Capable of sweeping us into one massive holy story.  Braided together, overlapping, back and forth, all the while creating something strong,  something unique, something beautiful.  Something that points ALL of our spheres of influence back towards the Creator.  God.  Who does all the braiding.  Yes.

Please understand that I am not advocating being motionless for the Kingdom.  There are mandates set forth by God that cannot be ignored.  The Bible is so clear that we are to be actively pursuing justice, mercy, and holiness.  That we are to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and live outside of ourselves until we breathe our last.  However, God's Word (holler at your Samuel) also clearly says that we are to be on our faces before our Living God, asking what He has for us at this very moment, this very day, this very year that is before us.  

What a remarkable posture.  One of moving forward, eyes lifted upward.  Love.

It's cool. Once I strike that balance, I'll let you know.  But for now, I am going to rest in knowing that God is moving in Austin, Texas, and (believe it or not) the greater Chicago-land area.  I will do that next right thing in front of me, but I will also pause during this insane life and continue to ask my Creator to make my story known to me.  


"It's good to struggle and let the spirit and word convict in matters of truth. He gives us awesome mandates, and then there are the different ways God is original and unique with each of us."

-Adrienne Baker Bley the first.  Whom I love. 

On letting Christmas happen to you.

New Years Day 2012.  I found myself standing the wake of Christmas 2011.  I had left a trail of wrapping paper, bank statements, and chocolate fondue pots all through the month of December.  And I was exhausted. All I had to show for the Advent season were bags under my eyes, a new bathrobe, and a husband that knew better than to talk to me until I had my first three cups of coffee.

Hindsight can be hard on a girl. I should have smelled Christmas coming around the bend in November.  I should have forecasted it as I swallowed my last bite of pumpkin pie. I should have noticed how the month of December in our calendar was blacked out by office parties, church gatherings, and family celebrations. It was disguised in the taste of Starbucks peppermint mochas and shopping lists, but I should have known. Christmas was coming like a big, fat, overwhelming tidal wave…and I would be swept away.  Christmas 2011 was going to wash over me, knock me around a few times and leave me on the shores of 2012, wondering what had just occurred. 

 Christmas was going to happen to me. 

In November everything it made sense.  This is what the Advent season is about. Tradition.  Family. Community.  Schedule all these things for optimum Christmas experience.  Check.  Then there are pancakes with Santa. Wait.  Also, let’s not forget about the annual Christmas cookie exchange. The craft fair. Choir rehearsals. Grab bags. White elephants. Then December hit.  I burned out the first week.  As we walked through all that we had previously scheduled, I realized it was too much.  My Batmobile had lost a few wheels, but I kept moving.  For the sake of face-saving, for good will towards all and all that.

All these well intentioned things left us in a candy cane induced stupor, stumbling into church Christmas morning.  I was wound tightly, after cooking our traditional breakfast, opening gifts, packing our Jeep full of more yuletide goodness for another family celebration, and outfitting my children in their matching Christmas attire.  I recall feeling inconvenienced that Christmas was on a Sunday. Seriously, I had so much to do.  Celebrating the birth of Christ didn’t really keep with our schedule.

And there it was. 

Laid bare, like an ugly sore airing itself out.  As I sat for the first time in days, I was overwhelmed by a holy sadness.  I had missed it.  In all my fa-la-la’ing, in all my egg nog drinking and outfit coordinating, I had missed Him.  My Jesus, born to a teenage girl without an epidural in a dirty stable two thousand years ago.  The birth that changed the History of Everything.  In my frenzied state of chaos, I had dropped my gaze from Jesus and fixed my eyes on whatever was before me.  Prone to wander, Lord I feel it.  Especially at Christmastime.

I am ever learning.

I know that Christmas time calls for a posture of holiness.  A time that is set apart from all other times.  A time to remember our Infinite God contained in a swaddling babe.  Let’s not pretend like we have wrapped our minds around that last sentence. FULLY GOD.  FULLY DIAPERED.  Should all things Christmas point towards this Miracle? Um, yes. We, as believers that this Event did indeed change the History of Everything, should face our Advent Season head on.  Eyes fixed.  Hearts set. But what does that look like?  When we are standing in November, red sharpies poised towards December, how do we keep our gaze fixed on Jesus?

One of my favorite passages in Scripture is Luke 2:19 ^“But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” She had just given birth, for the first time, in a barn-like atmosphere. She was unwed.  Mary was a baby herself.  She had strange visitors in the stable, shepherds and men of nobility who confirmed what Gabriel had told her months before. This child she had just birthed was indeed the Messiah her people had been waiting for.  What a rush! Mary’s response?  She treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.  She didn’t tweet about it.  She didn’t make birth announcements on Snapfish.  She treasured her good news.  She pondered that this little baby, borne of her own body, was going to Save her world.  And the rest of mankind.  No big deal.  

I want to be like Mary.  I want to create space in my life to ponder.  I want the opportunity to treasure the Good News that I have been given.  I want to stay calm in the flurry of the Advent season, eyes fixed on Jesus.  For me, that will take the form of more white spaces on our December calendar.  I am committed to protecting set times for reflection and restoration. 

I am going to have to learn to be okay with disappointing people, with breaking tradition so that my heart can be aligned with the One who made it.  I am going to plan meaningful moments and conversations with my children and husband that point towards our Jesus.  I am not going to rush through gatherings, mind already on the next event.  I am going to take those opportunities to look my family members in the eyes and encourage their hearts when we speak.  My husband and I are going to be purposeful with our gifts this year, knowing that all things Christmas should point towards the miracle that is Christ Jesus.

Let the Redeemed of the Lord say so.  Let us treasure what we Know.  Let us ponder how to make this Advent season one in which all things point towards the Promise we hold.  The Promise delivered in baby form. Let’s not just let Christmas just happen to us this year. Let us not get so caught up in all the good things that our Perfect Thing gets lost in eggnog frenzy.  Face it head on, full of intention and celebration.  Let us choose what to celebrate wisely.  Let us not get tangled up in the garland of “should do’s.”  Let’s be okay breaking tradition for the promise of what is sacred and good. 

Christmas 2012.  I can smell it coming.  But I am so ready for this.  I have my red Sharpie, ready to do some damage.  

Lazy Days.

It's been that kind of day.  The kind of day where I haven't brushed my teeth and my darlings are still in their pajamas.  They have watched more TV than usual.  I haven't done a ton of cleaning, and I've spent a lot of time researching various matters on the internet.  Important matters.  Such as what all my friends are up to on facebook.  

If I'm being honest, I'm feeling guilty about my day. I should be doing pumpkin-themed crafts with my four year old and posting it on facebook for the world to see.  I should be making some sort of comfort food dish for my husband when he walks in the door. I should be working on projects that I've left unfinished, and I should probably do something about that massive pile of laundry that's hissing at me in the corner.  And, according to Madeline, I should take a shower.  Should. Should. Should.

Sometimes I operate as if there is some sort of invisible "should do" social audience that I am catering to.  I don't know who they are, or what they look like, but they have managed to influence many of my choices throughout the day. 

Darn the man.  

Darn my make believe people.  

There they are, these invisible people, all up in my head space, telling me what I should and shouldn't be doing. And apparently today is a five-alarm day because I've felt nothing but guilt for not visiting farmers markets or taking my girls on a stroll to talk about deciduous vs. coniferous trees.  Maddie is even calling today Christopher Robin day.  Without correction.

It's strange dressing this feeling with words, because I've tolerated it for such a long time...but I'm constantly feeling the pressure to always be on, always produce,  and always impress.  Must. not. deviate. from. this. plan.  Must. be. efficient. at. all. times.  

For some reason, today it makes me angry.  Today I'm flipping the proverbial bird to my "should do'" invisible friends. Also, it's not really swearing when it involves make believe people.

I'm taking my day back.  

Free of judgement and condemnation and made-from-scratch feelings.  Who would view this day as a waste?  I'm alive, I'm learning, my children are playing together and are hanging out with Bubble Guppies and Octonauts. I need today to be like this.  And God knows that.

I know Who holds my day.  

I know who my invisible Audience is.  He is the One that I'm aiming to please.  And since my God made His Rachel this Way, He knows that I need some time to lay low, rest my heart, brain, and body.  I need this lazy day in order to fully face the days ahead of me this week.  My children and husband need rest.  And what I am (not) doing today holds importance of Kingdom proportions.  

So my invisible friends can take up residence in someone else's conscience.  

Seat taken.  

two rachels

My story really started the day I was born, but for your sake, I will start with a few years ago.  You're welcome.  I was twenty seven when I became a mom.  I thought I was pretty well acquainted with myself.  In my own frenzied ducks-in-a-row way I figured that I had lived enough life, worked enough of my kinks out that my kids wouldn't be irreparably scarred , and had had "enough fun" to settle down and build a family.    I just decided that the door to anything pre-kids would be shut, locked, and that key would be tossed.  I mean, I was almost thirty. Seriously.  That's so old.

And, at the beginning, during the late night feedings and the body change and the hour that it took me to pack a diaper bag just to go to Target I really really really decided that I was right.  I would look at married couples without kids, I would look at PK's (Pre-kidders) at the beach in their bikinis and I would mourn this part of my life that passed.  I seriously must have freaked out the high school girls that I met with, as I would go on verbal rampages about how lucky they were to have french fries for lunch in the cafeteria, and how I would give my left eyeball to sleep in until noon.  I figured I  might as well put on the denim jumper, get the mom haircut, and let my three month old finger paint the walls.  If you stuck a fork in my flabby post-baby arm, you would have known.  I was done.  I felt done.

  Don't get me wrong.  I LOVED (as I still do) being a new mom. I drank in every moment as a stay at home mom, stealing sweet kisses from my baby whenever I could.  I think I cried every night as I rocked Madeline and prayed over her life.  It was a feeling like no other.  I loved the rhythm of life.  I cherished the play dates, the coffee runs, the lazy days at the park and at the beach.  It was so beautiful.  Yet I began to feel a little unsettled.  My pre-mom Rachel was knocking on my hearts door.  She wanted to play.

As I sought God out, I began to realize that my perspective had been pretty skewed.  I fully believed that I had to lay down who God made me to be in order to embrace the kind of mom He wanted me to be. I was ready to do it.  But, slowly and brilliantly, God unraveled this untruth in me.  He allowed me to see that He had created me on purpose.  And that those dreams, passions, and yearnings were from Him, and would be accomplished thru Him.  And that my family was part of that equation of becoming whole.  That everything I'd gleaned from marriage and motherhood was being added unto me, and it was all put back into a better version of myself. There were not two Rachels.  There was just one kind of confused one.  Rachel 2.0.

And some time passed.  I slept more.  Some stretch marks faded (note: the some.  Hey.  I'll take it).  And I began to realize that I was still myself.  Just a little older, wiser, and slightly chubbier.  My passions did not fade.  My convictions and career aspirations were not under lock and key.  And, although I did have a moment of insanity where I bought fleece-lined Crocs, my fashion senses were somewhat in tact.  Most of all, as these two perspectives merged, I felt a beautiful peace taking over.

Although being a mother of Godly proportions requires much sacrifice and teaches much wisdom, patience, and perseverance, I now know that it does not requires death to self.  It requires just the opposite.  Being much alive in the One who holds everything together, and reconciles the old with the new.  Now I can bravely face whatever my God has set before me because I get it.  I may or may not have to go back to this blog and eat my own words a few times, but I'm grasping it.  Stay tuned world:  Rachel 3.0 in the making:)

Sit in it.

It's been a while.  I feel like it's been a lifetime since I've last written, and I can feel it starting to boil in my bones.  Like if I don't write this here post I might explode.  Even worse, what I am learning might fade into oblivion as this life rushes on, up and over me.  These words need to be written.  For my souls sake.

For my God has been doing a Number on me.  It has been a mother of a number.  I have been attempting to outrun, out-talk, and out resource this Number for some time, and God has finally sat on me.  Like glued-me-to-my-chair sat on me.  Sat on me in a way where I couldn't turn my head to the left or right or even cross my legs or anything comfortable because of the weight of this Number.  I guess my God knows this girl pretty well.  It takes nothing short of horse-blinders, duct tape, and a holy megaphone booming in my face for me to allow this Number to sink in.  

Because, since the day I made my two minute entrance into this world  (a story my mom is still telling), I have been what some might call "head-in-the-clouds-ish".  I prefer the term "thoughtful."  I am seriously always daydreaming, scheming, and thinking.  I wish it were more like Brother Lawrence where I am in constant prayer and practicing the presence of God.  Not so much.  Instead it's usually an insanely long stream of consciousness that may or may not exit my mouth at all times. Poor Greg.  His simple, "how was your day?" will turn into a monologue about how I've decided we should adopt a child, open an orphanage, or get my bangs cut.  

Being head in the clouds-ish is not really a bad thing.  But at times, I check into my head so much that I check out of my reality.  Such a tiny, fine line.  When I cross that line, my present life kind of becomes foggy.  It's like I'm sedated, slumbering through each day as I dream about what the next one holds.  It's not just my head I check into.  It's Facebook.  Pinterest.  Gmail.  Texting.  Words with Friends.  The Bachelorette (which, by the way, yay for Jeff!).  Sometimes I'm amazed at how checked out I have been in my day.  Checked out of fully loving on my girls, checked out of quality, quiet times with my Jesus, and checked out of supporting and encouraging my husband.  

And I know this is not how my God has designed this present life to be.  Consecrate yourselves.  For the Lord will do wonders among you tomorrow.   Loose translation:  be fully HERE today so that I can work wonders with your tomorrow.  I'm going to take a wild guess that consecrating myself today doesn't involve watching Teen Mom or spending hours reading Facebook statuses.  

Consecration:  (1) a solemn commitment of your life or your time to some cherished     purpose (2)  sanctification of something by setting it apart (usually with religious rites) as dedicated to God

What is my cherished purpose?  How have I set apart my day to dedicate it to the God who has given me this very day?  This breath?  This moment?  Moment by moment I make a decision: Check out or Consecrate.  And I know that if I choose to (with a little holy duct tape and horse blinders) commit each day to my Cherished Purpose that God will build upon those moments to do wonders with my tomorrow.

And the mother of a Number that God has been working on my heart is simply this:  Sit in it.  This is your life.  Sit down deeply in your beautiful mess.  Don't try to get up.  Don't strain your eyes to look forward or turn your chair around to see what is behind you.  Have purpose in your gaze.  See what I see.  Thank me for what is before you.  Set apart this present life, this moment I have given you, and fully drink of the cup I have given you.  For it is not until you do this that I will do wonders with your tomorrow.  

Idealotry

There are many things I like about myself and who God has made me to be.  I am an honest person.  I have good hair. 


However, somewhere along the way in my thirty-one years I have picked up some unfortunate habits/thought patterns that have woven themselves tightly into who I am.  I call them my uglies.  Occassionally they surface like a nasty pimple.  I usually pop them and then get on with my day. Fortunately for me, and for those around me, God is calling me up and out of my uglies and towards him.  This blog is partially to document that and partially to make sure that I am not that crazy.  That others share in some of my struggles.


One of the many uglies that rears it's head every now and then in my life is a little something I like to call idealotry. Besides, this is my blog and I can make up words if I want to! Idealotry is the worship of the ideal life.  It's the running standard in my head of what life should look like pitted against what real life looks like.  The two are usually so far apart that it's not even funny.


And it's not.  It's not funny.  Because what usually happens is that I do not allow myself to be happy unless my ideal life matches my real life.  And seriously, when does that happen?  I want to look like a super model.  I want my children to be scrubbed and brushed and clipped and have halos over their heads.  I want my meals to look like the cover of a Racheal Ray cookbook.  I want my home to look like a Restoration Hardware magazine.  I want my bank account to look like...well, look like somethings in it.


And where it really hits a nerve is with the holy life.  I have this ideal of what a life lived for Jesus looks like.  It's radical.  Like, sell my house, move to a third world country, and start an orphanage with my family.  I have an ideal of what the Church should look like.  This glossy picture of open homes, open checkbooks, open hearts, provision and forgiveness.  I have an ideal of just leaving reality behind and just wearing burlap or whatever the saints of old did and just proclaiming Jesus Christ to whoever doesn't run away from me when they see my fleas.  It sounds pretty, minus the fleas. 


And I'm not even sure that my ideals are mistaken.  My mistake is the amount of control I relinquish to them on a daily basis. 


So, often times I spend my reality; this present life; unhappy.  My reality is not even close to my idealotry.  I am no supermodel.  That's so far from the truth that I laughed out loud as I typed it.  Madeline has been in a time out three times today.  We eat frozen pizzas a lot.  As I survey my present life and the ideal life it breeds discontentment.  A dangerous thing.  Because I get so stuck on the picture in my head that I begin to think that I will only be fully happy if the two match up.  And it sucks the joy right out of my reality.  Thievery. 
And I know that I'm not alone in this.  Daily I listen to loved ones who struggle to find happiness with where they live, what they look like, the amount of money they have and the circumstances that they are living in.  If only we could win the lottery.  If only I could lose these last 20 pounds.  If only I could move back to be closer to my family.  If only...then.  I am in no way diminishing the hardships of anyones life...but where it becomes dangerous is when we refuse to live fully in our present lives because we are so wrapped up in what "should be."  Idealotry is debilitating. 


I also realize that there are times where God is calling us up and out of the way we do life into a higher standard of living.  But I don't believe that God is honored by our daydreaming of the ideal life.  I believe He is honored by us pulling up our bootstraps, with His help, and tackling our days with passion and fervor, even if they are not what we want them to be.   I believe that God is glorified when we hand over our ideals, and instead of living to the impossible standards in our head, we allow Him to guide us and move us into a life more fulfilling, rewarding, and exciting than we could even imagine!


 My God is a God who calls out to the deep.  Who is willing to get dirty with me and sift through the mess that is me...keeping the good, adding more goodness, and throwing my uglies as far as the east is from the west.