Simplifying… me

The other morning I sat around a table drinking coffee and solving the world’s problems – like Clairol versus L’Oreal – with fellow stay-at-home moms.  We shared candidly about our various hair coloring nightmares:  One woman experimented with an alternative brand only to end up with green hair – she was a blonde originally.  Another was visiting family in Norway and was cajoled into trying something “new” which, surprise, turned out to be bright red.  I was very daring too, fifteen years ago, and tried dying my hair “deep brown” (my natural hair color is dark brown – I’m such a risk taker!).  The “deep brown” I was going for transformed my dark brown hair to a horrifying jet black.  I looked like Morticia from the Addams family.   

We laughed with each other (and at each other), sipping our coffee drinks, sweetly enjoying our moment of female bonding.  The conversation easily and naturally moved on to something about children:  who wants more, how many more, any plans for more, etc, etc, etc.  Almost effortlessly the discussion took on a more serious tone as one woman began to open up and share her reasons for having only one child.  Her story so deeply touched my heart that it is all I have been able to think about for the past week.  It’s late, my own little ones are all tucked into bed, and I am finally finding the time to put my thoughts into actual words.

This beautiful mom had tried for years to conceive, and finally at age thirty-eight, had a baby girl.  It wasn’t but a few days after she left the hospital from giving birth that she developed a sharp pain in her side that wouldn’t go away.  She was quickly diagnosed with cancer and began treatment immediately.  The chemotherapy, while successfully wiping out the cancer, also succeeded in destroying the rest of her eggs.  She suffered from chemo-induced menopause.  As she opened up and recounted the fears and moments of weakness and questioning God, my heart was overwhelmed and drawn to her. 

Another mom entered the conversation, relaying her own story of losing a baby in her third trimester, and due to complications, had an emergency hysterectomy…at age twenty-six.  She had already been blessed with two healthy children, but the pain of this loss, both baby and hysterectomy, was staggering. 

Both women – diverse in their appearance, backgrounds and age – echoed the same conviction:  God was with them through the entire journey, and it was only God who could bring them through.

Amazing.  So often I am prone to shake my fist to the sky when I see something happen that doesn’t make sense to me, or doesn’t fit in my little boxes of what is fair and what is not fair.  I get angry when I don’t understand the “why” – even more so when there is no apparent “why”.  I can become introspective and sorry for myself because I feel cheated that I lost one too many years to depression and an eating disorder.  Then, almost blind-sided, my eyes are opened wide to the suffering of others.  I cringe at my self-preoccupation.  There is so much pain in this world, and again, I want to understand “why”.  Sometimes God just doesn’t make sense.

A brief thought was expressed, but as I have been processing I have drawn it out a little further:  It’s not so much that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.  He does, in fact, give us more than we can handle.  It is during those times when we are under the immensity of a difficult situation and we can’t possibly bear anymore, that God reveals His supreme greatness and strength and carries us through.  It is not in our strength – ever – but Christ in us that will empower us to cope with the hardships, sickness, loss and pain that we will all experience, to some degree, in our lives.

Jesus never promised us a rose garden.  He never guaranteed a life free from heartache and sorrow. 

John 16:33

“In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world.” 

Jesus also insured that, though life may come at us in unsightly ways and take us down a road we weren’t prepared to walk, He is still working in us to produce an abundant life.

John 10:10

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

It doesn’t make sense:  Living life to the fullest, yet facing a world of trouble.  God’s ways are so far beyond my tiny scope of vision.  I’m fiddling around with Crayola watercolor paints, and He’s looking at the masterpiece oil painting He completed long ago.  In my season of darkness and shadows, His hand made brushstrokes across the canvas of my life and created something beautiful and breathtaking.  The thief tried to take the essence of my friends’ lives and destroy any hope for a future.  Yet, I hear in their testimonies that, while there are still questions, still moments of weakness and doubt, that God is their sustainer.  When there was trouble, they had hope because God overcome that obstacle, and now they can live in the fullness of Him.

It’s really not about making sense of God because, quite frankly, none of us ever will.  God will never be One of whom we can fully fathom or understand.  I will have “why’s” on a daily basis.  God may allow us to walk through the darkest season of our lives, and it may never make sense in earthly terms, but God is working on a masterpiece far grander than the here and now.  His ways are not our ways, but they are higher.  His thoughts are not our thoughts, but they are purer and wiser.  The world, in its sinfulness, may try to destroy us, but the One who holds the world in His hands is holding us too – steady and ready to breathe new life into our broken souls.

Ms. Shaffer was notorious for driving poor, unsuspecting seventh grade students to tears with her ruthless grading scale and sharp-witted tongue. She was a legend at Rosslyn Academy, who we truly believed coined the phrases: “empty vessels make the most noise,” “little things amuse little minds,” and – probably my favorite – “open mouth, insert foot…and chew.” She never raised her voice, and pulled these zingers off with a smile on her face and a piece of chalk in her hand, all the while listening to Paul Simon – whom she loved. She was brutal. And I was terrified.

Our first assignment in Ms. Shaffer’s seventh grade English class was to write an introductory journal entry telling her a little bit about ourselves. I was so relieved, and so excited because I loved to write. (Since I was eight years old, and wrote my first poem, I have loved to write.) I thought to myself, this is my chance to win Ms. Shaffer over…she’s going fall in love with me and I’m going to be her star student! Internally there was a serious party going on in my heart and Julie Andrews was singing, “I have confidence in confidence alone!” I couldn’t wait to get home and tackle my “Introducing Amy” journal entry. My fears were quickly subsiding.

As I sat down at my desk at home and opened up my square paper journal, I began to brainstorm about what to write. I really wanted to impress Ms. Shaffer, so I knew it needed to be good, and it needed to sound smart. Sounding smart was about the most important thing in the world to me when I was in school – that, and boys, of course. To be perfectly honest with you, sounding smart is still something I really strive for. Funny thing is, when you try too hard to do, or be, something because you really, really want to do, or be that particular thing, it usually ends up blowing up in your face. Which in my case, it did…big time.

Back to “thinking smart thoughts”: I remembered this “Family Ties” episode I had watched one time, and Alex – played by Michael J. Fox (dreamy) – used the word intellectual to describe himself. Alex was a very smart boy. Therefore, in my eleven-year-old brain I figured that if I used the word intellectual in my “Introducing Amy” piece Ms. Shaffer would be so impressed with me. Not just because it was a smart word, but it was a big word – and smart people use big words.

Let’s just put it this way, every hope I had in becoming Ms. Shaffer’s little buddy – her class pet, her superstar seventh grader – was dashed the moment she handed my journal back to me. My literary masterpiece was covered – COVERED – in red ink. From start to finish there was hardly any evidence that I had written anything at all because Ms. Shaffer’s red pen of death had completely ripped through the pages of my soul. I was heartbroken. To make matters worse, I didn’t even spell “intellectual” correctly. A smart person would have at least looked it up in the dictionary to verify the spelling, but I’m not too smart. It never even occurred to me to grab my dictionary. Not only that, but I was pretty bummed that I couldn’t even get a decent grade when my assignment was to simply write about myself – the one subject I just happen to know something about. Evidently Ms. Shaffer didn’t think so.

I spent my whole seventh grade English career living in fear and trepidation of Ms. Shaffer’s red ballpoint pen. I worked so hard that year to redeem myself from that hideous first impression. To this day, I honestly don’t know what Ms. Shaffer thought of me (probably something like…emotional). I will say this, however, she (or quite possibly fear) pushed me to work hard – harder than I had ever worked in my life. And then, of all things, English became my favorite subject in school (I’m not sure if Ms. Shaffer is the one to whom the credit is due on this one, but she certainly had a hand in it).

You know, there are times, as I go through my day-to-day activities, when that eleven-year-old girl resurfaces. As I did with Ms. Shaffer, I want to be Jesus’ superstar. I want to present him with an “Introducing Amy” life that will knock His socks off. But I so often mess it all up. I want God to be proud of me. So what do I do? I do what Spiritually smart people do. I get up early and spend time with Him – I pray, I seek, I wait and ask Him to lead and guide my day. I do this, only to get irritated at Brooklyn when she wanders downstairs and interrupts my moment of “Spiritual intellect”. If God had a red ballpoint pen my life would be hopelessly covered with marks and scribbles.

Yesterday morning at church, before we partook in communion, the song “Amazing Love” filled the sanctuary…and I was suddenly overwhelmed – kind of like that feeling when you’ve had the wind knocked out of you. My hands trembled as I held the communion emblems in my fingers.

Amazing love – how can it be?
That you my King would die for me?
Amazing love – I know it’s true.
And it’s my joy to honor you,
In all I do, I honor you.

In a strange sort of way, God did have a red ballpoint pen. Although, He didn’t use it to scratch up the pages of my life and leave me covered in permanent ink. God sent Jesus – crucified on a cross…for me. Jesus – whipped, broken, covered in red strokes – poured out His love for me. He nailed my “mean mommy” moment towards Brooklyn to the cross along with His hands and feet – and countless other mistakes I’ve made in my life, the ones I’ve made just today, and the one I will more than likely make in the next hour or so – many, many years ago. He allows me to redeem my less-than-stellar moments, not with red ballpoint pen strokes, but by grace, forgiveness and a second chance. It’s not an excuse to be lazy. I still have a high responsibility in the various roles I play, but God knows I can’t do it alone. He knows I’ll forget to pull the dictionary out and end up misspelling a word or two. So, He allowed Christ to be the one to take the tough grade in my place. Every time I look at myself in the mirror I am reminded of the price that was paid so that I could be forgiven and uncovered with red ballpoint pen strokes. And at the end of the day, I actually get to be God’s superstar student!