God was there before I knew I needed Him

Once I worked with a couple who had enjoyed a life of mutual pleasure in participating in the porn industry.  Then they both had a spiritual awakening, which is good news except for this one little problem:  they woke up with different dreams.

The guy thought that he could love Jesus and prostitutes; the wife thought that if she loved Jesus her husband had to stop loving on the prostitutes.  Eventually the marriage collapsed.  But I kind of understood the both perspectives.

“Hey, she used to be a willing participant!  Now she acts like I am a sinner of all sinners but she never mentions that this is a major shift in her perspective!  I feel duped. The bible says she should submit to me.  I feel like she is ridiculing me with this sanctimonious BS and demanding a divorce - which I personally think is a sin.  What’s up with THAT?”

Ok, he has a point.  His wife had made some shifts in her core values; he had made some shifts in his - but they were at odds. Should they or should they not get a divorce?  Is this an issue of a wife not submitting to her husband?  Or is this a husband committing adultery and thereby voiding the covenant of marriage?  

I do not know how to parse all this out on most days, but I know this, and it is a pretty important truth:

But anyone who needs wisdom should ask God, whose very nature is to give to everyone without a second thought, without keeping score. Wisdom will certainly be given to those who ask.  

James 1:5

All of us have issues; and sometimes these issues compete for our attention.  Many days they feel insurmountable.  But through it all, we need to take into account that God is not keeping score and he is willing to give us wisdom.  This is a huge promise.  No matter where we come from, not matter our past, God gives wisdom to all people without a second thought.  I think this encouragement speaks to us about the promise of a future hope if we allow our heavenly father to do for us what perhaps we haven’t received from other mortals.

I must be missing something

The lovely luncheon with the lady who was languishing in old, stuck patterns did not have all those wonderful supportive opportunities growing up with an alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother.  If she had, then getting stuck would have been less likely.

When we experience encouragement, validation, support and all the other wonderful qualities of living in a reasonably healthy family, we tend to grow up becoming our own motivator.  We can rely less on others to tell us who we are and what to do and instead, have more clarity about our own dreams and capabilities.  This is important for realistic goal setting.

I regret not being a private investigator or maybe a detective.  I wish I had pursued my dream to become a doctor and go on to do brain research in an attempt to figure out how we humans work.  I THINK I had some ability to be athletically strong, if not particularly graceful, and I wish I had been given the opportunity at an early age to test that theory.  It didn’t happen.

Today, I understand why I wasn’t particularly dream-oriented in my twenties - I was in survival mode.  But by the time I was in my 30’s, I had acquired mentors, a husband who believed in me, and a best friend who thought I was capable.  I would say that I had some catching up to do, but I plugged away at it and today I am not only reasonably happy but completely passionate about my calling and my opportunities to dream and dare to participate with my tribe in trying to make the world a better place.

I swing for the fences sometimes - and it’s true - rarely has my ball made it over the far wall.  But I’m ok with that.  Because I am realistic.  I keep messing up, but I do NOT keep messing up in the same way!  This, my friends, is the best I can do and I am ok with that.

How about you?  No support?  Maybe you are hanging out with the wrong people.  This is a problem that you can solve.  You can change who you hang out with.  I encouraged my lunch date to think about who she was allowing to speak into her life.  I invited her to change the dance by changing her dance partners.  It really helped me and I do not think I am unique.

May you remember your dreams, your limitations, and your capacity.  May you push yourself a bit more than you are comfortable.  May you trust God to provide for the gap between what you think you need and what you believe you have at your disposal.  Now, go take on the day!

I bet you think this song is about you...don't you?

Whether you are a spouse, a parent, an employer, or a friend, there are some healthy ways we can encourage others that will NOT come natural if we haven’t seen others encourage us.  This is what we can aim for in our relationships - check them out!

* Some parents only encourage their children in areas that the parent has interest in.  Dad likes fishing for example, but the kid wants to play soccer.  Dad buys the kid a fishing rod.  This is selfish.  And tricky, because kids want to please their parents.  We have to be careful to elicit from others their dreams and desires without coercing them.  To this day I have trouble figuring out my preferences for almost anything.  I didn’t practice this skill set as a child.  Listen to folks; listen up for their preferences;  don’t fall for the old, “I don’t care, what do YOU want?” line.  
* Help others gradually figure out their own ways of being in the world.  This pretty much starts with listening to others’ thoughts, feelings and ways of doing things.  Of course, there need to be age-appropriate boundaries AND we must encourage realistic goals.  But beware of trying to manage your own anxiety by forcing others into your way of being.
* When children, employees, spouses, and friends object to something - pay attention.  If we have been controlled by others, we might mistake this natural way of being for someone trying to control us.  That’s not it!!!  It’s ok for children to be ready to “get down” from their high chair if they have eaten lunch.  Their attention spans are short!  Sometimes a person states a preference and we cannot accommodate them.  That’s ok, just say so without getting defensive or blaming them for asking.
* Encourage one another to go beyond our comfort zone; take risks; push the boundaries of our dreams.  When a family is not well, there is too much drama and chaos to accommodate trying and failing.  

Leave room in relationships for some healthy failure!!

Skills for the Road

Whether or not your family of origin had issues, here are two lists.  Notice if you are doing the first, be kind to yourself and run as fast as you can to list 2 and change your ways!!

DO NOT:  FORCE, IGNORE, SUPPRESS, TEASE, DISPARAGE the needs and dreams of others.

DO:  LISTEN WELL, COMFORT AND VALIDATE THE UNHAPPY, MEET LEGITIMATE NEEDS (provide a basketball for a kid playing basketball), HELP WHEN APPROPRIATE TO SOLVE A PROBLEM (school bullying needs adult intervention), ENCOURAGE PASSIONATE DESIRES (lessons, coaching with organic chemistry if you want to go to vet school but find the class daunting),  BE REALISTIC, all WITHOUT SHAMING (“You sure are costing me a fortune.”) or PUNISHMENT (“I got you that basketball but now we do not have money for you to go to the movies.”)

We all have our limitations.  We can be honest about that without somehow making the kid feel responsible (this also applies to other relationships with our spouses, or employees or whoever we are in relationship with) or guilty for a legitimate need or big dream.

When our daughter was going to college it was during an economic downturn.  My husband was our sole provider and he was part of his company’s leadership team.  They worked hard to not have to layoff anyone and this meant some pay cuts while the economy rebounded.  Our daughter wanted to study finance.  She considered out-of-state schools.  Her dad explained that we could pay for in-state tuition, but not out-of-state.  She could get loans for the difference but being a person who loved to study finance, and seeing as how we were alum of UVA and they had an excellent business school - she chose UVA.  Sometimes she was disappointed that she didn’t get to go somewhere adventurous and far away.  But as an adult, she understands.  Part of supporting big dreams is ALSO developing the capacity to be realistic.  

If no one ever did this for you, please do not beat yourself up if you have trouble doing it for others.  That’s ok, awareness is key.  If this is a problem for you, find someone who can mentor you so that you can move from the DO NOT list to the DO LIST.  It’s far more satisfying!

Take your ordinary life...

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.

Romans 12:1 The Message

The sacred is made real in the mundane.  I do not have to be a Super Hero of the faith; I do not have to go to some far off land as a missionary or spend all my time at church in order to be a faithful person.  

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you (this is a sacred dance, there is stuff I am to do but it is with the awareness that God is always helping me do it).  Your sleeping, eating (good self-care), going-to-work (not some special kind of work in some mystical quest for spiritual significance whatever the work I am doing is the work I am doing), walk-around life (no compartmentalizing - I am not one person at church, another in the stands at my kids’ ball games).  Place it before God as an offering (just living life is an offering).

You’ll be changed from the inside out. (There will be some internal shifting that may precede my ability to express this in my daily living.  Patience!)

Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. (I need to understand how God wants me to be in the world so that I can respond accordingly but most important I need to understand that God is my biggest advocate, my greatest supporter, he’s crazy about me and wants to support my maturation.  He’s in this out of love for me, not in an attempt to get something from me.)

In the next few days we will talk about the ways that healthy families validate, support and nurture one another.  But what helped me the most was first seeing how God went first and did these very things for us long before I was aware of his presence and provision.