When Two People Don't Dream Alike

 

I recently had the opportunity to write a post on the World Relief Spokane blog page. You can check it out here! 

I think it’s clear from my blog post there, and also from numerous Facebook posts, that I’m pretty crazy about World Relief and the people who work there. I love their heart, their vision, their passion, and their compassion. I adore the World Relief Spokane employees my husband works with. They love so well. I’ve watched them show love to the refugees they serve, to my husband as their employee and coworker, and to our family. 

But Jordan and I didn’t always live in Spokane, and Jordan didn’t always work for World Relief. In fact, three years ago we hadn’t even heard of the organization. I want to tell you the story of how God set Jordan up with this job, because it’s one of my favorite stories. It’s a love story, really.

When I first met Jordan, circa 2002, I was only fifteen years old, and he was eighteen. At that time, he was passionate about Scotland and spicy food, both of which foreshadowed his future passion for world cultures. At that time, Jordan’s dreams of traveling and trying food from all over the globe seemed intriguing and fun to me, but cloaked in his general enthusiasm for all of life, they didn’t seem all that serious. Fast forward a few years, and Jordan had, in fact, fallen fast and hard in love with missions work and with people from cultures around the world. And I’d fallen fast and hard in love with him. But the whole missionary thing?  No, thanks.  I’d been on a few uncomfortable trips to other countries, and while the memories I had of loving and learning from people around the world were precious, each trip reminded me how much I really loved my own country. My homesickness always seemed to outweigh my delight in the culture I was currently experiencing. I wanted to stay close to family; I wanted to pursue ministry, counseling, writing, teaching, all from the comfort of home. 

This fresh-faced baby was Jordan in Nepal, shortly before we got engaged. Nothing gets that guy more excited than meeting people from all over the world. That and eating their food. 

This disparity between Jordan’s dreams and my own were frightening to me. I knew I wanted to marry this man, and he wanted to marry me. But why would God have placed us together if one of us would have to sacrifice our dream, our happiness, for the other? I remember crying on the floor of my friend’s dorm room in college, afraid that God was asking me to make a sacrifice I was unable to make. I wasn’t sure if that sacrifice was my own dreams, or whether it was Jordan himself. I didn’t really find a lot of answers that night, but I did find peace. Over time, I felt God saying “Yes” to my relationship with Jordan, and saying “Yes,” to our future together, although I still had no idea what that would look like. 

In college, we and some of our best friends would have "International Dinner Nights" where we would all make a dish from a different country, and with our (very) limited resources, dress like that country. I think Jordan is mixing Hawaii and Nepal here. I'm feeling confused about this. 

This is shortly after we were married and traveled to Uganda together on a mission trip. I am loving the sweet girl in my arms and seeing the beauty around me, but I am simultaneously longing for home.

For the first few years of our marriage, Jordan and I finished our bachelors and masters degrees, my focus in teaching and Jordan’s in cross-cultural communication. His heart for cross-cultural ministry had only grown stronger, and as we had our first son, my desire to stay in the U.S. had never been stronger, either. As Jordan neared the end of his masters program, he began pursuing options for his final internship. It was kind of by accident that a friend of ours, with no connection to Jordan’s school, told him about this non-profit organization that his dad’s friend worked for.  Some organization called World Relief that focused on helping refugees assimilate into the United States. That sounded cool, and none of the other internships had panned out, so he went for it. He spent the next nine months working in a tiny local office with two Armenian women who were the only two employees, driving all over L.A. and meeting people from all over the world. And he couldn’t have loved it more. 

To make this already too-long story a little bit shorter, when Jordan graduated, he applied to almost every World Relief office in the U.S., for every job opening. He got the job in Spokane, and we packed up our tiny apartment and moved, both of us giddy with joy. 

In case God’s kindness to us is not already obvious, I would love to spell it out for you (honestly, I love talking about it!). Jordan wanted to work with people from all over the world, and I wanted to stay in the U.S. As a case manager for World Relief, the world comes to Jordan. He still gets to work cross-culturally, from the comfort of home. Jordan could never settle on one culture that he loved the most, so he could never get a clear picture on where he would want to do missions. World Relief works with cultures from all over.  He gets to taste it all (I mean this literally; every week he comes home bragging about how his clients feed him delicious food from their native countries). Jordan is also the most welcoming, disarmingly friendly person, perhaps in the world. His job at World Relief is to welcome people who have fled their own countries, and to help them find a home in his own country. His personality is so wired for that. There are countless other ways that it seems this job was custom created for Jordan – for both of us, really. It is almost three years later, and we are both still giddy with joy. 

God is for your dreams. He is for your biggest, best dreams, and even more. “God…is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of – infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts or hopes.” (Eph. 3:20).  Dream big, and dream with God, because He can dream even bigger than you can. I had no idea how God would fulfill Jordan’s dreams and my own, but He knew, and He did. 

God is for marriages. For those of you who are married: If you have sought and followed God’s leading in your relationship, obeyed Him as best as you know how, then He will fight to keep you and your spouse together. He will join your callings. He will unite your dreams. He will take even the most inharmonious of your separate desires and will craft them into a sweet song that has never been heard before. The kingdom of God will be stronger for the two of you being and dreaming together. If you trust him, if you keep listening, keep praying for strength to obey, and love your spouse with all of your ability, I am here to tell you that He can make it work.  

And the exciting part is that God isn’t finished dreaming yet. My heartbeat is getting stronger for the world, and for these diverse, courageous, big-spirited people that my husband welcomes into our country. The thought of living overseas doesn’t horrify me as much. Sometimes I start getting a little excited about Scotland and spicy food. Who knows where we’ll be in ten years?  God does.  And He has promised that it will be good. 

You can rest in his promises, friends, and you can trust Him with your dreams. 

What's In A Name?

One of the reasons I was most excited to have children was to name them. When I became pregnant for the first time, circa 2009, I purchased a large book of name meanings, and began pouring over it.  To me, it is a weighty matter, this naming of humans.  Whether we choose to name our children after someone we love or admire, or whether we choose a name because we love what it means, or simply because we like the way it sounds, we are labeling a person for life. What a responsibility!

One would think that I would choose my children's nicknames with the same intentionality and love with which I chose their true names.  Especially since I often call them by these nicknames far more often than I call them by their actual names.  My first son, Asher, has the most nicknames and they make the least sense. He is "Bean," "Beany," "Beany Baby," "Asher-Doo," "Sugar-boy," "Sugar Biffin," "Ash-a-smash," and so many more.  At least none of these are unkind.  My twins, Nora and Abel, have nicknames that make more sense, but they are far less flattering.  At first, I simply called Nora "Little," because her build was petite.  That was cute.  Unfortunately, as her brother filled out and grew hair, and she remained skinny and bald, "Little" morphed into "Gollum." (If you don't know this reference, we should be friends.)  On the flip side, Nora's twin brother Abel was originally dubbed "Cutes McGee," (the "cute" part is self-explanatory, the "McGee" is entirely without meaning).  As he filled out and Nora became Gollum, Abel became "Fats McGee."  Now, before you judge me, I should be clear that these names stay within the home.  I don't go to the grocery store talking baby talk to Gollum and Fats McGee.  My entourage and I get enough stares as it is. 

Sugar-boy

Fats and Gollum

A fascination with names runs in my family, at least as far back as my maternal grandmother. I had always known my Grandma's name to be Juanita Jernigan, but she was born Beulah Orndoff.  At the time of her birth, her parents worked for Camp Beulah, a Christian campground whose owners thought it would be great if their pregnant employees would name their child after the campground.  Makes sense. (Wait, what?) The camp owners offered financial compensation in the form of a furnished nursery for the first family to take them up on the offer, which sounded like a sweet deal to my great-grandparents. Come August 1935, baby Beulah Orndoff was born.  Unfortunately, my Grandma hated her name, largely due to teasing from her class-mates about its origin.  At the ripe old age of 8, she begged her mom to let her pick a new name.  Her mother, understandably unattached to the name, agreed, and Grandma renamed herself Juanita Darlene Orndoff.

Names matter to people.  An article in The Week Magazine called names our "badges bearing information about our class, education level, and ethnic origin."  People believe certain things about us based on our names, and these beliefs (even if inaccurate) have the potential to shape our lives.  The article traces the importance of our names back to the Romans, who had the saying, "nomen est omen, or 'name is destiny.'

Names help people to know who we are, and we all want to be known.  I was reminded of this when talking with my baby (17-year-old) sister Deborah, who recently moved from a tiny town in rural Canada to big ol' Dallas, Texas.  She went from living in a place where everyone knew who she was and what she was about, to a place where no one in her massive high school even knows her name (at least not yet - this is no ordinary girl we're talking about here).  While our name may not say everything about who we are, if someone can call us by our name, we feel like we have been seen, and valued, even if only for a moment.  Maybe this is why it's such a precious idea to people that God knows our name.  He can pick us out of a crowd, and out of the billions of people on Earth, he knows each one of us intimately enough to call us by name.

What a sweet truth, and yet, God's been showing me that there is more to this idea than I originally thought.  Yes, God knows us by the names given to us by our parents.  But he has also never been limited by the names on our birth certificates.  In the Bible, while Hebrew culture clearly considered naming children a serious matter, there are many occasions when God seemed to hold earthly names rather loosely.  Take the apostle Peter; he'd grown up with the name Simon.  A good, solid Hebrew name, one that had served him well enough for thirty plus years. One day, Jesus up and renames him Peter, meaning "the rock": "On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.  I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 16:18). Bam.  Simon was an okay name for an impulsive, flaky fisherman; Peter was the perfect name for a passionate, unshakable world changer.

Another of my favorites is Gideon. God (or an angel of God) finds Gideon hiding from his enemies in his family's winepress, living in a home that is filled with pagan gods.  Gideon knows what is right but is too afraid to do anything about it.  And yet, the way the angel greets Gideon is, "The Lord is with you, mighty warrior." Gideon kindly informs the angel that he is, in fact, the weakest member of the entire nation of Israel, and he even tries to prove it by being cowardly on several future occasions.  And yet, the Lord stubbornly, purposefully calls him "mighty warrior" instead of something more appropriate, like "weak sauce."  He doesn't call him what he is, he calls him what he is meant to be. 

God doesn't call us what we are, He calls us what we are meant to be.  Yes, he knows us by name, but that holds deeper meaning than simply knowing us by the name everyone else calls us.  He knows our God-given names, the names that tell the story of what we are called to do for his kingdom in this beautiful, crazy world.  And the most powerful thing about it is He calls us these new names (our literal "callings") before we have done anything to prove we can live up to them.  God is the original prophet.  He sees through our best efforts to sabotage ourselves and, often in our worst moments, He reminds us who we actually are.  He calls us out.

My family and I recently flew out of state and had a seven hour layover. This, as you can imagine with two toddlers and a preschooler, was a special opportunity to spend some sweet time together as a family.  Toward hour six, however, my son Abel had had just about enough family time.  He walked his little two-year-old self out to the middle of the airport terminal, and threw an award-winning tantrum.  It was really impressive.  He screamed his patented scream: a primal, gutteral, ear-piercing scream that makes nails on a chalkboard sound like the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir.  As he stood there screaming, my husband and I (who were so tired at this point, we were just watching the whole thing unfold like awesome, uninvolved parents) observed as a tiny, practically microscopic baby Hispanic girl toddled out to where Abel was standing and wrapped her tiny, petite arms around his waist.  She just held him, in a big bear hug (if the bear was tiny and cuddly and adorable).  Abel's maniacal screams instantly ceased, and there was a hush of silence in the terminal (except for the "awww" that was quietly offered by all observers).  When tiny "Isabella" was pried off of Abel by her grandma, Abel silently turned around, walked back to me, crawled up into my lap and laid his head on my shoulder.  Tantrum over.

Honestly, it felt like a heavenly moment.  What makes this story so powerful to me is that baby Isabella did for Abel what God does for every one of us.  She saw his ugliest self, and instead of avoiding him or treating him as the person he was behaving as, she held him close and treated him as one who deserves love. With her actions, she called him loveable, even when he was doing his best to prove that he wasn't.  Loving the unlovable: isn't that really the most prophetic act there is?

I want to be more like God, and Isabella (whose name interestingly means "Consecrated to God" or "discerning spirit.").  I don't want to simply know people by their earthly names, or even by what they act like on a daily basis.  I want to see beyond the surface and know who people are meant to be.  I want to help call out the best in people, and bless them to be the men and women God made them to be.  I want to see the cowards and call them mighty warriors.  I want to see the flighty, impulsive ones and call them solid rocks.  I want to see barren couples and call them mothers and fathers of great nations (Sarai and Abram - another jaw-dropping name story).  I want to see the unlovable and call them sons and daughters of Love himself.  I want to know peoples' names.

And so, my fascination with names continues.  Nomen est omen.  Name is destiny.  What is mine?

What's yours? 

 

Grace Under Fire

The last few weeks we've had house guests in town.  The last few weeks have also been the hottest weeks of the year thus far.  It's been 90 plus degrees outside, and about 85 degrees inside our home.  We are one of "those people" who don't have central air conditioning in our home.  This alone would not be so bad, as I'm finding there are quite a lot of "those people."  Unfortunately, we also find ourselves in the smaller category of "those people" who have windows from the 1950's that open with this special crank that looks like it's from medieval times, and the windows only open halfway, making them incompatible with window unit air conditioners.  So, we are quite without air conditioning.  Okay, okay, my husband will make me be totally honest and admit that he has attempted to install a portable air conditioner into our home that vents out the hot air through the mail slot.  This means that whenever someone comes to our front door, they are blasted with a tornado of hot, oppressive air that continues to blow in their face until someone answers the door.  Also, said portable air conditioner only works approximately half of the time.  So, we are quite without air conditioning. 

Naked and angry.

We have tried other methods of cooling the home, as well, such as setting frozen water bottles in front of box fans, opening and closing the windows at strategic times of the day, running through the sprinklers, and trying to lay very still.  The children are usually naked and angry.  We have all been on edge.  I've been referring to our home as a "fiery hell" more often than is necessary, because saying "fiery hell" makes me feel a little like I'm cussing, which makes me feel a little bit better. 

There was a particularly hot day last week when the heat had apparently loosened all of my children's bowels, and all three of them pooped continuously throughout the day, some poop contained, and some not at all contained.  I put the kids down for a nap in the afternoon, but of course it was too hot to sleep, and Abel cried unceasingly for what I swear was only 15 minutes, and I checked on him at least three times during that time-span.  Did I mention we had guests in town?  Well, one guest found the crying to be too much to handle (understandably; you have to be conditioned to tolerate these things) and he left the house, popping back in to let me know that it sounded like we were beating a kid in here, as Abel's window was open (see paragraph 2, where I mention strategic opening and closing of windows) allowing all the neighborhood to hear his screams.  I went back to check on Abel one last time, and found that my passionate, expressive child had thrown himself into the side of his crib in his despair, and had busted his lip.  His mouth, clothing, and sheets were spotted with blood.  Meanwhile, we still had guests in the living room, and I was trying to maintain the illusion that my family was not insane, but I was beginning to believe that we were, in fact, insane.  After I snuck the bloody laundry out of the bedroom and into the washing machine so as not to feed the previously mentioned suspicion that we are an abusive family, I collapsed on the living room floor in exhaustion, letting my now-free children crawl all over me, one of which took her full milk cup and brilliantly figured out how to pop the lid off, pouring the entire contents into my hair. 

And I gave up. 

I excused myself from my one remaining guest, who was looking on in an mixture of pity, horror and disgust, and I went to my room, thinking to myself, "She is right.  I am pitiful, horrible, and disgusting.  These things don't happen to normal people.  Normal people don't end up with MILK on their heads." 

When I was in third grade, everyone ate lunch in the "cafetorium," a word that simply meant there was a stage in our cafeteria.  The garbage cans for dumping the remains of your lunch were set up in front of the stage, so that a double line could be formed, with students dumping their lunch from above, in a line that walked across the stage, and from below, in a line on the ground in front of the garbage cans.  I was in the latter line one day, innocently dumping my tray, when I felt a deluge of sticky wetness cascade over my head and down my back.  The girl on top of the stage had accidentally missed the garbage can and dumped her milk on my head (lunch monitors, could the possibility of this happening not have been foreseen?).  As I, half blinded, made my way to the office for a clean change of clothes, kids were giggling.  The target of ridicule was not the girl who had clumsily missed the garbage can, but it was me, the innocent victim, the girl who had ended up with milk on her head.  And I thought to myself, "they're right.  Normal people don't end up with milk on their heads." 

Twice. 

Bad days, people.  Hot, sticky, nasty, bad days full of public, embarrasing moments, and the private conviction that these things don't happen to the best of us, the prettiest of us, the wealthiest of us, and that we must have done something to bring it upon ourselves, because normal people don't have these days, normal people don't end up with milk on their heads. 

I was at the park with a friend of mine and our kids the other day, and we stared as a remarkably stylish group of moms had a sweet little picnic with their stylish children.  My friend laughed as she told me that she always wishes she could be part of a Stylish Moms Club.  I looked at them, looked at us, and thought to myself that we were much more practical in our raggedy shorts and T-shirts, because every one of those moms was eventually going to get crapped on, barfed on, spit on, or peed on, and they were just going to have more expensive outfits to get the stains out of.  But we all have people like that, don't we, a group of people we would love to be a part of,  a "club" we'd love to belong to because we secretly believe the members of that club are above it all.  I know I do. 

Well, I'm going to do what I always did when I was little and there was a club I was excluded from: start a new club.  Because what is so wrong about getting milk spilled on your head, or wearing ratty shorts, or sweating in your un-air-conditioned home, or getting all of your children's bodily fluids ejected onto you in one day?  Maybe people in the Normal Club don't get milk spilled on their heads, but who wants to be normal anyway? 

Recently, during another hard day with the kids, a family member told me, "you are still in the midst of being prepared for something BIG, Hannah - and I bet it includes multi-tasking!"  Prophetic, powerful words from a lady who probably doesn't see herself as a prophet at all.  And she is so right, because God never wastes a moment.  He uses every season, every accident, every failure as a training ground to prepare us for higher ground.  What if I stopped looking at the hard days as tough luck, and started looking at them as purposeful challenges that God is using to train me for something great?  Much easier said than done, I know.  Which of you,  after realizing the wipe you were using fell through and that you just wiped your kid's butt with your actual hand, is going to stop and say, "I was chosen for this moment.  God will use this experience to make me great."  But who's to say he won't?  I think God is big enough to make even the smallest, ugliest, stupidest moments into something big, and beautiful, and extraordinary. 

So, welcome to my new club.  Everyone is welcome: rich or poor, ugly or beautiful, clean or dirty - doesn't matter, because God tends to turn all of that stuff backwards and upside-down, anyway.  May God give all of us Club Members the ability to see our lives through eyes of grace.  Through redemptive lenses.  May we see our poverty as wealth, our ugliness as beauty, our filth as purity, our insignificance as greatness.  May he give us grace under fire as we remember that it's his fire that refines us. 

And as I return to the literal fire of my 85 degree home, may he remind me that even this fire has an extraordinary purpose. 

Un(Facebook)worthy

A couple of weeks ago, I was trying to bring some lunch to a friend who was having a rough day.  I had the best of intentions.  However, in my zeal to do something nice, I failed to realize that:

A.) It was lunch-time, and my kids hadn't eaten.
B.) My gas-tank was empty.  Not almost on the "E" empty, but right smack on the "E" empty.
C.) I had never been to this friend's house, and the main road to get there was under construction.

Consequently, this fun little trip with the kids turned into a fun little trip to hell.  What should have been a ten minute drive turned into a forty minute drive, with me periodically stopping the car (making sure to turn the car entirely off so as not to waste the gas fumes I was driving on) to check Google Maps, which is useless to me, because on my best days, reading maps is like reading Portuguese to me, and on my worst days, Google Maps Navigation persistently leads me back to construction sites over and over and over again. My kids were hungry, which means they began screaming at the top of their lungs about five minutes into the drive, causing me to be unable to think or hear the Google Maps Navigation girl giving me the wrong directions.  So, I did what I always do when I am overwhelmed or lost or annoyed at the kids: I called my husband.  I put him on speaker phone, because my awesome phone is from 1984 (aka 2012) and the sound periodically goes out unless I put my calls on speaker phone. Well, there were three kids screaming in the car, a frantic wife sputtering about how she's about to run out of gas and is completely lost and she CAN'T DO THIS anymore, and the faint murmurings of a polite but misinformed Google Maps girl, insisting that I really should turn right and plow right through that construction site.  Jordan, of course, heard all of this since it was on speaker phone, but I didn't care.  Honestly, this is just a slice of normal life for us.  He did sound a bit preoccupied, but I had no time to take that into consideration at that particular moment of insanity.  He managed to look up Google Maps on his phone, actually read the Portuguese map, and give me a detour that got me to my friend's house in relatively one piece.  Thank you, saint and hero of a husband. 

It wasn't until he got home later that he casually mentioned that he'd had a client in the car when I'd called.  A young man from Sri Lanka, a refugee who only recently entered the country.  He'd been driving the young man to a medical appointment, and since he was driving, he'd had to put me on speaker phone, as well.  My mind spun back to the ugliest moment in the car, when the kids had been screaming so loud I couldn't hear anything Jordan was saying, and I had yelled "SHUT UP!" which always works to quiet your kids when they are already upset and hungry.  Not.

I was so embarrassed that my private, ugly moment hadn't been private at all, and Jordan's unconcerned assurance of "It's fine, he hardly understands English," did nothing to comfort me.  You didn't need to speak English to hear the chaos and poor parenting that was occurring in that moment.  Welcome to America, sir.  Land of the free and the crazy.

Needless to say, that moment did not make it onto my Facebook status that night.  Nor do I post countless other ugly but real-life moments that occur on a daily basis.  Most of us, I think, tend to post a best-scenario version of ourselves online.  Here is a sample of the type of photo I post of my daughter Nora:

So cute, right?  I just want to eat her up like the ice cream cone that's on her shirt.

Here is a sample of Nora in real life, 95% of the time:

This is Nora at her happiest: Shirtless and eating dirt and other unspeakable things straight off the ground.

If you are like me, you deem certain moments and certain photos "Facebook Worthy" and certain moments and photos Un-Facebook-Worthy.  Consequently, the Facebook persona, or the public persona we present to the world is not always the fullest, truest form of who we are (insert shock and awe). What we show the world isn't necessarily a lie - it's just not the whole story. 

And let me just say, sometimes this "filter" is good.  We probably all know a few people who could use a stronger filter on their Facebook posts.  The public doesn't need to know everything that happens in your life (It is taking every ounce of self-control I have right now not to give hilarious examples of Facebook posts on my newsfeed that have no filter. GAH.) While I appreciate authenticity (and I really appreciate authenticity), I also appreciate a healthy measure of privacy.  Certain things are sacred to your home (and to mine) and certain things are not appropriate to share.  We all have things that we would prefer to keep between ourselves and those closest to us, and I think that is healthy and good.  But, I think it's important that when we deem a moment "Un-Facebook-Worthy," that we don't associate that moment or that photo with shame. 

Take my parental failure the other day in the car with the kids.  It wasn't my best moment.  I felt awful that I'd yelled something unkind to my kids, and that I'd let a stressful moment turn me into someone that I don't want to be.  On top of that, I felt ashamed that I'd been heard by a stranger in that moment.  It would have been easy to get stuck there, in that sense of shame and guilt, believing that I'm a terrible parent.  Instead, I let the feelings of shame and guilt push me toward repentance.  I apologized to Jordan, for being a crazy wife and for being unconcerned for his needs at that time, I apologized to my kids, for speaking (yelling) unkindly to them, and most importantly, I apologized to God, and asked for His help to be the mom I was created to be.  Because that mom in the car, that wasn't me.  That wasn't the fullest, truest form of who I am any more than the Facebook version of me is.  It was just a moment, a snapshot, an unflattering selfie that will never make it onto the internet (until now).

We all have those snapshots of ourselves that we don't want anyone to see.  As spouses, as siblings and sons and daughters and especially as parents: not every moment is pretty.  Not every moment is sunshine and flowers and blowing bubbles and baking cookies for your kids who are currently holding hands, singing sweet little songs and playing quietly together outside like little cherubs.  Some moments may be like that (okay, really, if you have moments like that, I'm moving into your house and forcing you to mentor me) but not all of them.  And in the ugliest, most private moments that you don't want anyone to see: give yourself grace.  Apologize to those you hurt, dive deeper into the love of God, and trust His promise that He's not done with you yet.  He's in the process of refining that ugly selfie and turning it into a masterpiece.  You won't even recognize yourself when you see the finished product. 

Just because a moment in your life is Un-Facebook-Worthy, doesn't mean you are unworthy. 

Not the birthday blog I thought I'd write.

So, you know those kid birthday parties that are becoming more en vogue, where the invitation says sweetly at the bottom, "No gifts, please."

I hate those.

You really can't win as a guest at those parties.  You think to yourself, "Oh, they're just being nice.  I'll look like a jerk if I don't bring a present.  Everyone else will bring a present." So you bring one.  And NO ONE ELSE DOES.  You look like the lone, materialistic jerk at the party.  So you learn from your mistake, and at the next "no gifts" party, you do not bring one, only to find, to your great surprise, that everyone else did.  You are now the lone, stingy jerk at the party.

One invitation for a kid's birthday party I received took it to another level, where it said, "Handmade gifts only, please."  Um.  I know that as a stay-at-home mom, I'm supposed to have all the craftiness and DIY, pinterest-style abilities that are all the rage right now, but let me tell you something: I am missing that gene.  It got lost somewhere along with the gene that was supposed to help me appreciate Jane Austen mini-series' and Downton Abbey.  I'm still looking for it.  If you are wondering how I got through this particular birthday party, I piggy-backed on my crafty friend Nina's gift (an adorable home-made apron) and bought some little baking utensils to stick in the pockets.  I'm still sticking to my story that I hand-carved the tiny wooden spoon.

All this to say, we have always thrown the kind of parties at our house where gifts are welcome (certainly not required, but not excluded, either).  My son Asher just had his fourth birthday party, and I realize now that four seems to be the age where a child first recognizes what a birthday is and is fully able to milk it for all it is worth. ("Mom, can I play video games with you?" "No, honey" "But it's my birrrthday." "Mom, can I have two muffins, and a cookie?" "No." "But it's my biiirrrthday.")   At his party, Asher got some gifts, he got a cake, he got lots of attention.  He took it in stride.  As is often the case, his party didn't fall on his actual birthday, so there was a "birthday week" following the party during which cards and packages from family arrived in the mail.  Asher got a free birthday smoothie from Dutch Brothers.  We made him special birthday muffins on the morning of his birthday. We also made a special trip to Baskin-Robbins for his free "birthday ice cream cone."

Asher shared about 1/28 of one bite with a sibling after every ten bites of his own. This caused Nora to begin shrieking, which caused us to leave the Baskin-Robbins approximately 3 minutes after sitting down.

After a full birthday week, on the evening of Asher's actual birthday, we ran to the drug-store for a few things.  When I returned to the car where Jordan and the kids were waiting, Asher eyed my shopping bag and asked, with a gleam in his eye, "What's in there?" Jordan replied, "Facewash for Mommy, and toothbrushes for Nora and Abel." And with those words, there erupted a fit from Asher that made me realize with sudden clarity why people request that you not bring gifts to their children's birthday parties.  The fit was so extreme that I briefly pondered whether we should become Jehovah's Witnesses, eliminating the entire birthday issue.  I won't relive the tantrum's content in detail, but the general gist was that Asher was SHOCKED that I had the nerve to go to the store and return without something for him.  On his BIRTHDAY, of all days.  After much weeping and gnashing of teeth, we reminded Asher that he'd had a full week of us celebrating him, and maybe it was time to start thinking about someone else.  "No! I want to think about ME," Asher screamed.  Precious.

Maybe this sense of entitlement is normal in a four-year-old.  I vaguely remember from my human development classes in college something about how children are "naturally" self-centered until a certain age (umm...94?).  However, Asher's words served as a warning flag for me as a parent, and stirred up something in my heart that God's been speaking to me for awhile now.

Entitlement is not limited to 4-year-olds.  Rewind 5 months ago, and I was essentially throwing the same fit as Asher on my own birthday, December 21st.  My birthday is stupidly close to Christmas.  Every year I feel a twinge of self-pity when people have the NERVE to put Christ's birthday before my own. I throw my own fit, wanting everyone to think about me instead of buy toothbrushes and other lavish gifts for everyone else.  And I'm not just greedy on my birthday.  I've spent years taking the money, resources, gifts, friendships and other things God has given me for granted.  Jordan and I have family and friends who have blessed us during times of financial strain (Grad school, having three kids under the age of three, you know.) They've given us baby gear, a new washer and dryer, a car, the list goes on.  I wish I could say that this led me to also give generously to others in need, but I can't.  Instead, for many years I developed a strange, unconscious entitlement to being blessed.  I guess I thought of our family as the poor ones.  When I heard sermons about giving, or was approached by charities asking for money, I honestly didn't see how we could afford to give to something like that.  I had a mentality of receiving, not of giving.  Gross.

Like I said, over the past year God has not only uncovered my selfishness and entitlement, but has been stirring up a distaste for it.  He's changing my heart; he's reversing my spirit from that of a receiver to that of a giver, and it feels good and hurts all at the same time.  I could write a whole other post (or two, or three) about the people and things he has used to change me, but for now, let me just tell you what we did about Asher's birthday tantrum.  We saw that he was a little bloated in the receiving area, so he needed some practice giving.  We asked him to choose four toys (one for each year of his  life) from his collection to give to some kids who didn't have many (or any) toys of their own.  We reminded him about David, the sweet boy from Kenya who we've been sponsoring for just over two months (another result of God increasing our hearts to give). We showed him pictures of kids in areas of the world where toys aren't even the issue; having enough to eat is.

I expected it to be hard for Ash to give up four things.  Turns out, he thought four was kind of a lame attempt, and he upped it to ten things.  Included in the ten things were some of his nicest toys, and even one of his new birthday toys.  He gave innocently, with a generosity and a disregard for "stuff" that put me to shame.  I had to bite my tongue several times to keep from saying "Are you sure?" when he picked out things that I obviously valued more than he did.

What did we do with these ten toys?  Well, turns out my husband works for an amazing non-profit called World Relief, where he personally knows several refugee families who came into our country with only a couple of suitcases to their names.  Certainly their kids could use a few toys.  Asher took his box to Jordan's office and gave it to Robert, the sweet donations manager at World Relief.  Robert had Asher sign his very own and very first tax receipt, which was probably Asher's favorite part. 

Here's the thing: Everyone can give something.  If you make $44,000 or more a year, you are in the top 1 percent of wage earners in the world.  That's probably a wake-up call for a lot of people.  Our family doesn't make $44,000 a year, but we can still give.  Nowhere in the Bible does it say that if you don't have much, you don't have to give much (or at all).  Jesus honored a woman who gave her last two pennies as an offering to God (Mark 12:41-44).  The prophet Elijah asked a widow and her son to use the last bit of oil and flour that they had to make a meal for him (1 Kings 17).  Jesus asked a boy who only had a little bit of bread and fish for his lunch to share it with him and oh, just 5,000 others (John 6).  If you haven't read the ending of these stories, do it. Here is what I'm learning: It's awesome when we give out of our surplus.  It's awesome when we give, period.  But when we give out of our lack, when we don't have anything to give and we give anyway, that's when the miracles start happening.  That's where the pleasure and power of God is.  That's where I want to be.

Giving ten toys?  Sponsoring one child overseas?  Baby steps.  You annoying people who send birthday invitations requesting no gifts are way ahead of me, and I repent for calling you all annoying (but I'll still probably bring a gift to your party, out of sheer rebellion).  I have the sense that what God is doing in Asher and in our family is only the beginning of a journey he is taking us on.  Jesus said that where our treasure is, that's where our heart is (Matt. 6:21).  My prayer is that by the time this journey is over, there will be pieces of the Bemis's hearts all over our city, and all over the world.

 
Jesus also said that whatever we give to the poor, we give directly to Him (Matt. 25:40).  Well, Jesus, we hope you enjoy the ten toys we gave you this week.  We trust you'll put them to good use. 

Love Story

There was once a man who fell deeply in love with a woman.  He did everything possible to show her his love.  He lavished her with gifts; he selflessly served her.  It delighted him to show his love to her, and he did so without inhibition.  She loved him too, but not with the same delight or passion.

Her infidelity started small, with thoughts of being with other people, thoughts of doing things she knew he wouldn't like.  Slowly, these thoughts turned into actions, until she was openly and unashamedly sleeping with other people.  He should have left her, but he couldn't.  He loved her too much.  He continued to plea with her to come back, and she continued to ignore him.  Years passed, and even as he watched her life waste away, as he watched her beauty fade into the ashes of what used to be, he continued to love her.  Love unrequited, love unconditional.

Eventually, she did come back.  Dirty, used, dressed in rags, she came back, expecting to have to beg, but finding his arms were still open, and his passion was the same now as it had been when she was young and beautiful and pure.  Finally, she understood the depth of the love she'd scoffed at all these years.  She'd been so stupid, but it didn't matter.  They were together now.

But the years she'd spent without him had left their mark on her.  She was dying.  Just when she was finally ready to give herself to the man who loved her, the consequences of her choices were taking her away again.  But he found a loop-hole.  The disease she'd contracted was unique; it was possible for the disease to be drawn from her body and injected into another person's, but only if there was a willing person.  A willing sacrifice.

He was gone before she fully realized what he was doing.  She should have known, but she couldn't have.  It had never been done; that kind of love simply wasn't heard of.  As she watched his life being drained from his body the way it should have been drained from hers, she wept.  His last words to her were that he forgave her; he knew she hadn't known what she was doing.

This is where the story gets crazy.  As she prepared to live the rest of her life without him, she began to see him in places.  She thought he was a ghost at first, thought she was going insane.  But eventually, he came close enough to talk with her.  She held his hand, touched his side, and knew that he was real.  It hadn't been enough for him to die so that she could live.  That would have been a temporary fix, but it would have all been for nothing if he couldn't be with her.  Somehow, he'd found a way to come back from the disease that had taken his life.  Impossibly, he'd found a way to be with her again.  And this time, the disease was gone, the threat of death was gone, and they could be together forever.

I've fallen in love with this story as I've told it to Asher in bits and pieces over the last year.  No, I'm not reading him Nicholas Sparks novels, and NO, I am not telling him vampire or zombie stories.  I'm just reading him the Bible.  You know, that crazy love story that's full of passion, and cheating, and coming back from the dead.  Oh, I read him the kid version, but even that is full of power!  Because you can't tame down this kind of love.

You also can't copy this kind of love, not really.  People try.  Take this whole trend over the last decade of vampires and zombies.  I just can't get into it.  At first, I thought it repelled me because it was just so out there, so unrealistic and crass and grotesque.  Mixing romance with death?  (Someone please enlighten me, what is so attractive about a white-faced vampire who literally wants to suck the life out of you?)  I just didn't get it.  But as I've familiarized myself with the story of Jesus and his bride (his bride is humanity; anyone who struggles to believe in Him), I've realized that there are a lot of the same themes in this story as there are in Twilight and all of its brothers and sisters.  In the Jesus love story, there is romance, and there is death, but prevailing over death there is LIFE.  And that is why the zombie and vampire thing can't hold me, because I've read the original story, and all of the copies out there are missing the best part.  I've tasted life and the overwhelming theme of death in these other stories leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.   

I am not writing this blog post to bash on pop culture or the vampire or zombie fad.  I don't care about them that much.  I was just honestly floored this morning by the raw, unabashed love of Jesus.  I've thought the "gospel" was boring, and have struggled to imagine myself excitedly sharing the story of Jesus with others, afraid that others will see it as irrelevant (maybe secretly believing it is irrelevant myself).  Little did I realize that everything "relevant" revolves around this story.  And the biggest reason for me to share it is that isn't that it's relevant, it's that I'm in it.

I'm the girl in that story.

So are you.