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.

The Next Thing

Tis the season for it.  The good stuff.  The good will towards all, and the cookies.   The parties, the presents, and the cookies.  The worship and reflection.  And the cookies.  So much goodness and happiness and calories squeezed into such a short amount of time.  For me this translates into eight separate to do lists bouncing simultaneously around in my brain.  Like a ping pong machine.  Seriously.  Don’t be surprised if you find me wandering aimlessly in the aisles of Walmart in my bathrobe with a glazed look in my eyes.  Fa la la la la la la la la.  I can tend to get paralyzed by my “to do” lists up in my head sometimes.  It’s all swirling around in there, like a tornado.  I get sucked into the vortex, and all I want to do is (figuratively and literally) rock back and forth in the fetal position for a minute or two.  

 There is what I refer to as my A list...standard every day protocol.  Laundry, bathing, reading Disney Princess story books with Madeline, etcetera, etcetera.  But what really debilitates me is my B list.  That is the list that I never get around to.  That's the "if I get done with my A list" list.  It's also the important list.  It's  the people I need to be praying for.  It's losing the rest of this baby weight.   Raising daughters who know and love and follow God. Reaching out into my neighborhood.  Getting ahead financially.  Being available for friends who need an encouraging word or someone to cry with.  Keeping my house presentable for company.  Most of all, I get overwhelmed with the holy life.  Am I living a life worthy of the Name to which I am called?  Seriously?  Is there anything remarkably  Jesus-ish about me? 

How.
Will I ever. 
Do this. 

So usually what happens is this.  I throw in the towel.  I eat half a dozen donuts, swipe the credit card, watch the Kardashians instead of sweet prayer time with Jesus, and I leave my girls in their pajamas all day.  I pull my car into the garage and don’t take the time to say hello to the several neighbors that are raking their leaves or putting up Christmas lights.  I see friends and church or at the store and have casual conversations with them, our mouths saying one thing, but our hearts and eyes speaking a language of disappointment, longing, and failure.   The heaviness of the failure literally makes my shoulders sag .  I feel like I’ve disappointed myself, my family, my friends, and most of all, my God.   And I know that being overwhelmed and feeling like a failure is self-inflicted.  I know, I so deeply know, that God did not design life to be like this. 

One of my favorite movies from the nineties is What About Bob?  It’s a comedy about a doctor-patient relationship that goes awry.  In this film, Dr. Leo Marvin (Richard Dreyfuss) aides Bob Wiley (Bill Murray) in overcoming his phobias with “baby steps.”  These steps involved taking small measures towards a greater goal.  For whatever reason, it makes me think of cooked spinach.  Yes, I am strange.  Anyways, back to the spinach.  I don’t like the way it tastes, but I know it’s good for me.  So sometimes I want to just eat it in one bite so it’s over with.  But then it slides down my throat and my gag reflexes kick in and it’s not a really pretty situation.  For me or anyone sitting within three feet of me.  However, if I were to take small bites, and chew on them for a while, it would be a little more manageable.  And then it would be gone.  Baby steps. 

Oswald Chambers has been quoted as saying, “Trust God and do the next thing.”  The next thing.  A bite of spinach.  Baby steps.  For me, the next thing would be what is set before me at any given moment.  It would be the tree for the forest.  What if, instead of allowing my guilt to weigh me down  for not praying for my children enough, I stopped for a few moments and lifted them up to Jesus?   What if I chose a banana over a donut?  If I chose to take five minutes to call a friend that I hadn’t connected with a while?  What, just what if, I decided to park my car in the driveway and run over with my girls and say a quick hello to a neighbor?  And the mother of what if’s…what if I trusted GOD while I did all this? 

I know that being debilitated by my goals is not how God has called me to live. I’m learning that the process of becoming holy as He is holy is a moment by moment process.  It is choosing Him over the Kardashians.  It is choosing to roll over to my husband and ask him to pray over our family instead of both falling asleep the second our heads hit the pillows.  It is deciding to do the next thing.  And all of those next things will dramatically shift the direction of my life, of my character, and of my holiness.  Just like shifting the tracks of a railroad.  They will point me along the path of righteousness, baby step by baby step. 

Beautiful Burps

I was trying to express to Greg how I feel when I write, and the best I could come up with was that it felt like burping.  Like everything I digest in life has spent a little time jostling around in my heart and mind until pressure builds, and  I burp.  And feel a whole lot better.  It's not the prettiest comparison, but it sounds better than what happens on the other end...if you smell my drift.

I spend so much of life just absorbing, taking in, and swallowing whatever life has to offer.  I've had meaningful moments with loved ones and interactions with not-so-much loved ones.  As I move through life, I feel like I only have a second or two to respond to each significant moment before the next one hits.  This includes some of my most precious moments with God.  It's like I feel this cloud of holiness descend on me, and then my three year old yells through the fog, "I need to go a lot of poops!" Onward Christian soldier.

But when I write, life makes sense.  There is something about pausing to make sentences out of all the jumbled thoughts and words in my mind.  To pull something concrete out of what otherwise seems like wet cement.  It really allows me to reflect in a way that is good for me...to realize how God is weaving His story in me and throughout me and the ones I love.  It gives me lessons, purpose and direction.  Writing, for me, feels like burping...the pressures of the absorbed life built up and released.  And I feel a sense of relief every time I pull something significant (to me) from the the fray.

For others (like my husband), writing feels like a form of Chinese torture.  And that's okay.  But I do feel that everyone needs to burp.  It may not be writing.  For some, it may be cooking.  It may be running.  It may be coloring in a princess coloring book.  Perhaps singing.  Making bracelets.  Painting nails.  There are treasures that God has given each one of us to allow us to pause and make sense out of the life that He's called us to.  Something life-giving, that we all walk away from feeling refreshed and renewed. 

Our God is a God who loves us and sings over us with great delight.  He has not only given us deep joy in knowing Life through His Son, but He has chosen to give us treasures along the way.  Treasures and talents, to make sense of the Life He's given us.  And to know Him more.   I know that my God is honored when I sit down to write.  I know that He is blessed when I pause and let out a beautiful burp. 

What I'm Not.

There are many words I would use to describe myself.  I feel that I am genuine, a tad gossipy, funny, intuitive, and prideful.   I am an idealist to the nth degree.  I thrive on relationships, and my world is not right when there is a rift between a loved one and myself.  I could make conversation with a wall.  I have, in fact, made conversation with a wall.  I count beans.  I have a proactive personality.  I know that Jesus loves me regardless of what I say or do, but I am forever, FOREVER trying to be good enough for Him.  I am a quality time kind of gal.  I can be passive aggressive.  Just ask my poor husband how many times a day I let out the dramatic sigh.  Hey.  I didn't say it was all pretty, but I'm a work in holy progress.  Amen and amen. 

But my list of what I am not is a lot more difficult for me.  Especially when it comes to serving God.  There are so many wonderful opportunities to advance the Truth inside and outside my church community.  And I want to do every single one of them.  Bake sale? Sign me up.  Worship team?  Got it.  Youth Mentor?  Totally.  Childcare?  Love kids.  Neighborhood outreach?  Yes and yes. 

What happens in all my yessing is that I run from activitiy to activity, with a hallelujah thrown up in between my driving and painting and baking and reading.  My mind is running faster than my poor body, like an obese person with a personal trainer yelling for them to catch up.  I feel panic welling up in my throat, not wanting to let anyone down, feeling like I'm doing a half-butt job of everything.  I secretly (or not so secretly) am crabby with everyone who is not volunteering as much as my saintly self.   I cringe as Madeline asks where I'm off to next as soon as Greg walks in the door. And, inevitably, I crash. and burn.

One of those committments is a community Bible study I'm in.  We are taking the year to go through the book of Acts, and it is a-may-yay-zing!  One of my favorite passages is in Acts 6, where the early church was thriving and growing.  They were selling their possesions, giving to the needy, and constantly breaking bread and praying prayers together. Love. The distribution of the daily food was getting a little unorganized and tricky, and the twelve apostles gathered the believers together and said:

"It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.  Therefore brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty.  But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word."   Acts 6:2b-4

I know that it sounds like Peter and his homies were cocky, but my understanding of the text is quite the opposite.  Peter was crystal clear about his purpose and calling.  He had walked with Jesus, he had waited upon Jesus, and he was being obedient to Jesus.  He didn't waste his time running around and "yessing" everything that the early church threw his way.  The apostles knew what they were.  And knew what they were not.  Because of thier obedience, the church grew by the thousands.

Although my intentions are to honor God with all of my yessings, I end up losing sight of God in the flurry of servitude.  It's like a bad romantic comedy, where the starlet spends half the movie primping, tanning, dry-cleaning and outfit shopping in order to impress her love interest, and it turns out he prefers sweats and no makeup.  We run around like chickens with our heads cut off, shouting, "Praise the Lord!" while we run into walls and ditches and all sorts of trouble.  Meanwhile, God wants our sweats.  He wants to direct us towards purpose and promise in our quietest moments.  Like he did with Peter and the early church. 

I need to have more quiet moments with God.  To know what He asks of me before I go yes crazy.  I need to know myself through His eyes.  I need to learn how He has crafted me so perfectly to fit into His body.  I believe our God is a personal God, one who has made us to serve in a unique capacity.  For me to say "no" to an opportunity to serve means that opportunity is open for someone else to fill it as God calls them to.   It all works together like a holy orchestra, each of us picking up an instrument as God calls us to play; the music reaching and blessing His heavenly ears. 

So. I am learning.  I am ever learning.  I am learning to say "maybe" instead of yes to service opportunities.  To get in my sweats and pray about it.  And then to feel confident in saying no, just as Peter did, if God is leading me elsewhere.  Therefore, my list of what I am not is growing.  I am not an artist.  I am not a Sunday school teacher.  I am not an encouragment card writer.  I am not a "techie".  I am not a grounds crew type of gal.  I'm not a speaker.  I am not a bake sale participant.  I am not a preacher.   I am not good at sending care packages.  I am not a greeter.  Maybe that will clear some space inside my head and my heart for God to whisper gently to me what I am.