It’s like this and like that and like this and uh*

I recently read Crash the Chatterbox, by Steven Furtick**, about quieting inside (and outside) voices so that you can hear God’s voice. It was a great book and helped me to isolate and silence some pretty destructive voices. And through engaging with my inner voices, I learned another powerful lesson: Whatever purpose we are here to fulfill? We already have everything we need. 

For instance, God gave me an English teacher mother, above average spelling and grammar acumen, a pretty sordid childhood, and a voice with which people can identify because He intended for me to share my story. 

BUT, you knew there was gonna be a but, didn’t you? In the process of sharing my story, here is some chatter I have heard in my head and from well-intentioned friends:

You’re writing a book?

There’s nothing really special about your story.

You’re not that good of a writer.

Who would want to read your story?
Only famous people write memoirs.

What’s it gonna be about?

Who’s gonna buy it?

Your daughter is a better writer. Maybe you should have her write your story. (She IS a way better writer, but she has her own story to tell.)

You’re not good enough. You’re not interesting enough. You’re not smart enough. You’re not important enough. You’re not special enough. You’re not skinny enough. You’re not blonde enough. You’ve never been enough and you never will be enough. Those voices are so mean; good grief!

Except a funny thing happened in the midst of that though. The aforementioned book landed in my lap and told me: 

• You are doing better than you think you are. 
• You matter more than you think you do. 
• It’s less about you than you think it is.  
• God says you are enough. 
• God said He gave you everything you need. 
• God says you can.

It told me that the voices in my head were just that: Voices. I could tell to shut the @#$% up. If someone tells my kids they can’t do something, I say, “That’s their opinion, and their opinion doesn’t matter. God made you, and God says you can.” So what if the people who should have encouraged  or complimented me or believed in me didn’t. God gave me everything I need to do what He intended me to do.

Who cares if other people don’t believe my story is important? I think everyone’s story is important. We can all positively impact someone by sharing our experiences and our heart; isn’t that why we are here? To love God and to love people?

If I share my story, and one person walks away feeling less shame about her own childhood, deciding to make lemonade out of the lemons life handed her, realizing that she already possesses everything she needs to fulfill her highest purpose, then it was worth everything to reach that one person. It was worth every embarrassing story. It was worth every agonizing question I’ve ever asked and will ever answer. It was worth losing every person who will no longer make eye contact with me because they never really saw me anyway.

My sweet friends, what voices do you need to quiet today in order to hear a still small voice that speaks only love?

*Nuthin’ But a G Thang (What up, Dre)

** I think Steven Furtick is an extremely gifted pastor, speaker, writer and teacher and couldn’t care less about the size of his house or how many people got baptized at Elevation on any given Sunday.

Peaches and Pain

It feels like fall today, which simultaneously makes me happy and sad. Happy because I love fall. Sad because winter follows, and I don’t like winter. I love so many things about fall: football, fires, pumpkin coffee, pumpkin everything, fresh apples, hoodies, snuggling under blankets. When I was little I loved going to the Harding football games with my dad. We usually left at halftime, after the bands performed,which was my favorite part. I held onto his pinky because my hands were little and his were big. We walked through an area of Warren, that most people probably wouldn’t walk through at night with their kids now, but I never felt afraid.

Yesterday, Chloe told me she missed my dad. I missed my dad too. It was funny–weird, not haha–though not really because Chloe and I are always eerily connected. Once, I woke up in the middle of the night really worried and uneasy. I prayed for about two hours and finally went back to sleep. She told me the next day that she had wandering through the streets of Pittsburgh at the time. Missing my dad is one of our few sad connections. Fortunately, Chloe hasn’t been dealt a lot of sadness since she carries so much of mine.

My bff lost her grandpa earlier this year, another dear friend lost her grandma last week, some of my closest friends lost their stepdad/father in law a month ago, a dear writer I adore and admire lost her mom yesterday, my mom lost two more friends in the last month. Often in empathizing with others, I’m drawn so far in that I relive my own sadness. A few months ago, I had a dream about my dad, and in it, he told me that my mom was going to die. I had longed to dream about my dad for quite some time, but this wasn’t exactly what I hoped for. In the dream, I wasn’t sad or upset and kind of fluctuated between dreaming and logic. Course, I guess that’s where I usually am: fluctuating between dreaming and logic.

For as long as I can remember, every time I went into my parents’ playroom, I sat on my dad’s lap. When I was little, when I was grown, when I was happy or sad. Sometimes I sat on his lap with one of my own babies on my lap. Sometimes we talked, sometimes we laughed, sometimes I cried and sometimes he did. When I was really little I used to do his hair. He sat patiently while I did. It was so hard to walk into that room after my dad wasn’t in his chair.

This morning, I ate a peach, and it reminded me of the peach trees and raspberry bushes in our yard growing up. I used to eat fruit until I was sick, coming into the house sticky and stained. My mom made delicious jam. Then one year, in an aggressive fertilization attempt gone awry, my dad killed the peach trees and the raspberry bushes. The bushes were a total loss, but the trees still grew, though they never again bore fruit. A few years ago, in a super romantic move, Brad bought me a peach tree. It died. Last week, I drove past my parents’ old house in downtown Warren, and the peach trees had been cut down. Guess I’ll stick with farm market peaches for now.

I think the point of all this is reminding and retraining myself to focus on the beauty, the memory, the what was and what is and what could and will be rather than the pain of the loss. Tomorrow isn’t promised, but part of the beauty in this life is the fleeting nature of everything we hold dear. So my sweet friends who are sad today, I am holding you close to my heart and lifting your cares to God.

Sit Down and Shut Up

This morning, my 100 Days of Prayer Journal prompt was: What do you say to yourself about faith. Ask God to reveal what you need to be saying. Over the past week, I had to confront some long-buried issues from my childhood. I didn’t want to deal with them. And, I still don’t want to. Almost 100% of the time, I think that talking about things is the best way to deal with them, but in this particular instance: I don’t want to talk about it.

Delving into the past did make me think about a lot of other stuff, like the fact that I’m glad my kids aren’t going to have to deal with the resurfacing of awful crap from their childhoods. I’m not a perfect mother. My family is not perfect, but it isn’t a nightmare. And I don’t worry that some day my kids will wake up and question every person in their lives. I don’t worry that someday they will wake up and feel as if their whole childhood was a sham.

My family of origin had a lot of laughs, but it also harbored a lot of secrets. Secrets that we didn’t even admit to ourselves. Secrets that are buried with two of my brothers and my dad. Secrets that destroyed some of us and really screwed up others. Secrets that “aren’t nice” to talk about as my mother would say. And some that are too awful even to remember. But if you peered through the windows of our glass house, the Swans looked fine. Looks can be deceiving.

I wanted what any child wants: to be accepted, loved, and cherished, but mostly I was criticized, belittled, and beaten. I never felt good enough. I sought acceptance anywhere I could find it–with friends, with alcohol, with boys…mostly with boys. Fortunately, God sent me the perfect boy when I was pretty young. One who would tell me nearly 25 years later, “I feel like you were mine before I even knew you.” Swoon. The boy who wishes he could have protected me from everything–even my own family. The boy who walked with me and held my heart and my hand while we made the family of my dreams.

I’m off topic. Sorta. Back to my kids. They are amazing. I tell them all the time how proud I am of them. I’m not perfect. Sometimes, I yell. Sometimes, I swear. A lot of times, I’m impatient and nit-picky and neurotic. I apologize…a LOT. I always stick up for my kids when other people–people who should tell them how great they are–don’t. I tell those people how great my kids are even though they don’t care or they would see it themselves. I seek validation because I never got it from the people who mattered. There’s the revelation: I sought approval from everyone because I never got it from my parents. My kids don’t seek approval from anyone because they got it from us.

Wow. Make sure you’re sitting down the next time you ask God to reveal something to you.

I read a million books trying to figure stuff out, but all I needed was God. Not the God of my childhood, who scared me. The God I found at MY church. I spent 39 years trying to do it myself, and in one short year, God completely changed my life. I never have to live another day seeking approval, because in Him, I am accepted, loved, and cherished. In Him, I am good enough. When people tell me they don’t believe in God, I don’t judge them. I pray for them. I pray that everyone’s heart would feel as full as mine does now.