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When Your Right-Now Work Feels Extra Ordinary But Not Extraordinary {and something I made for you}

December 12, 2017 by Marian Leave a Comment

The day began in the pre-dawn hours with black coffee. It’s a telltale sign I’m extra serious about the day.

By 7:30 I had cooked four hot breakfasts, packed two lunches, and made an unplanned trip to the middle school. I’d walked the dog and made a grocery list, even though I was just there yesterday. And probably the day before.

A friend asked me why I don’t just buy cereal. “It’ll change your life,” she said.

It’s true. Cereal is from the Lord and I promise you that we eat plenty of it because many of our mornings are just sheer survival. I’m often stumbling through the early moments of a new day in ways that feel less like June Cleaver and more like a hangover.

But when the stars align, when I’m up early and have the capacity to do All The Things, I try to nourish these people of mine before we all go our separate ways, hopeful that the warm food in their bellies feeds their souls and not just their bodies.

It sounds idyllic but let’s be honest — it’s work. And it leaves the kitchen a disaster. I don’t feel naturally inclined toward any of it and yet I find myself, again and again, serving up oatmeal and stacking up laundry like it’s a normal thing. Because it totally is.

This is my right-now life.

My younger self found herself lost in thoughts about doing big, brave things in the world.

My right-now self finds herself lost in thoughts about work-life balance, ordering takeout, and being able to lie down.

I think hard about better ways to get everything done, wondering how I can best approach work life, family life, writing life, community life. I shift and re-shift these blocks of time around in my mind, working it like a puzzle that will forever have a missing piece or three.

On black coffee mornings, I wonder how I got here.

My small life in this big world feels both humble and humbling.

College degrees and four years of graduate school provided not a single course that taught the skills I clumsily employ for the majority of my waking hours.

I am both overqualified and woefully unprepared.

This humble, ordinary life of mine is my greatest earthly treasure. Yet on a daily basis, I often consider the work required in maintaining this treasure as “beneath me.” I work tirelessly to make all the puzzle pieces fit into a vignette that is awe-inspiring. But the truth is, my everyday landscape looks mostly like unmatched socks, an embarrassingly full inbox, and making dinner again.

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I know I’m not alone when I often long for more than dishes and lunches and permission forms.

In a culture that confuses significance with visibility, our daily lives and ordinary work convince us that we’re coming up short.

In her book, Liturgy of the Ordinary, author Tish Harrison Warren says this:

We tend to want a Christian life with the dull bits cut out.
Yet God made us to spend our days in rest, work, and play, taking care of our bodies, our families, our neighborhoods, our homes. What if all these boring parts matter to God? What if days passed in ways that feel small and insignificant to us are weighty with meaning and part of the abundant life that God has for us?

I find myself praying for God’s strength and presence as I swipe the peanut butter and scramble the eggs because the honest truth is this: I’d rather do something more significant.

Yet these are the daily rhythms that knead truth and humility into my forgetful, prideful soul. The dailyness that comprises my existence can either rob me of life or give me more of it. Fighting for the latter is always worth it.

This fight to find my life in the ordinary places always begins with humility, with smallness.

Time and tasks spent in the daily service of my own household has become the holy ground of spiritual formation and transformation, namely my own. As I die to my own grand notions of significance, I begin to find life. It has not gotten easier, only more normal.

This hard-fought, daily relent feels much like repentance. First the resistance, then the surrender, and finally — the life and the freedom.

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Coram Deo is a Latin phrase that Christians have used for centuries. It literally means before the face of God.

To live coram Deo is to live all of life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, and to the glory of God.

Presence. This is Emmanuel, God with us. A God who washed feet and cooked fish and fed people. He is with us as we do the same, not as a distant ruler but as a kind, here-and-now companion, keeping company with us at the sink, in the classroom, and during the dark nights of the soul.

Authority. Yet this humble baby was also a sovereign King. A King who rules our individual lives with love and defends us against our enemies. This sovereign, loving King uses our everyday, right-now lives as instruments of redemption. It makes no sense to me but it has been the theme of my own life.

Glory. The smallest task on earth is bursting with glory potential, from the selling of goods and services, to the wiping of bottoms. When I’m struggling with insignificance, when I’m bemoaning mundane work, it’s usually because there’s a glory I’m not getting for myself.

Life coram Deo means to live a life that is small in the best ways. This maker of Heaven and Earth is not helped along by our pride, entitlement, and ambition.

And it means to live a life that is big in the best ways. This Creator God is with us and for us.

Perhaps this is the big, brave life I wanted all along. Who knew that I would find it among the breakfast dishes?

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On an everyday December morning, in the hustle and bustle of a chaotic kitchen, I am good to be reminded of life coram Deo.

Ours is an integrated life. It means that all of our work is sacred because it is done in the presence of Christ Himself. All ground is holy ground. All work is pregnant with the potential for our own transformation and for the feeding of bodies and souls.

Scripture says we “have this treasure in jars of clay.” I smile as I consider that God uses a common household item, an everyday clay jar — the ancient world’s Tupperware — as a vessel for treasure. This verse goes on to tell us why: “to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” {2 Corinthians 4:7}

Our clay selves, prone to cracking and breaking, have been chosen to carry the light and life of Christ into every nook and cranny of our lives. This is the light and life that allows us to suffer with grace, to surrender with trust, and to serve when it’s not part of our “skill set” or resume.

When we die to the glory-seeking agendas for our own lives, we make space to receive His life that moves in us and through us.

May we be humbled to realize that the light which shines from the face of God somehow shines within us too, lighting our path to the bedside, the boardroom, the kitchen.

The smallest work is heavy with significance when it’s weighted with the God of the universe.

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As you may have guessed, my own journey with this phrase has inspired a wearable offering for you.

Just as I wear “courage” on the days I need a tangible reminder that there is strength while I wait, I wear “coram Deo” on the days when the tasks of my right-now life feel extra heavy.

Here are the details:

Each coram Deo necklace is $17 each and that includes shipping.

Hand-stamped with love : )
Aged-brass look
Added tassel. The tassels come in assorted colors so the actual color you receive will be a surprise. (Since I don’t have an endless supply of any one color.) They’re all lovely and can go with anything!

Gold cord with at least a 16-inch (plus) drop
The cord makes it light and casual, simple to wear with anything and to layer with other necklaces.
I will ship within 1 business day of purchase.

These make such meaningful gifts and, well, it’s the season for that. I include a little note that references coram Deo and what it means. Order as many as you like (until they run out) and the shipping is still free.

I’m set up a bit differently this time and now have my very own Etsy shop. These necklaces will be on sale through Saturday (December 16th) or until I sell out. Last time, I sold all the courage necklaces in a little over 24 hours, so you may want to act sooner rather than later.

Click here to get yours.

Feel free to leave any questions in the comment section or email me at marianvischer @ gmail dot com.

Thanks so much for your kind support of this little corner of the internet. Happy shopping and gifting!

—> coram Deo neckalces

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If this post resonated with you, you may also enjoy:

How to Wear Courage in Your Right-Now Life

How to Pursue Your Hoped-For Work in the Midst of Your Right-Now Life {a series}

How to Waste Your Life and Call It Beautiful

How a 92-Year-Old Woman Taught Me the Real Value of My Right-Now Work

New here?

I’m all about helping you recapture the possibility of your right-now life. Each post provides courage, companionship, and resources for life lived real.

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10 Ways to Receive Your Summer Life with Less Envy and More Gratitude

July 3, 2017 by Marian 1 Comment

Last summer I wrote a post called “How to Receive Your Own Summer Life.” I bared my struggling summer soul, which has a way of overflowing with envy and discontentment during the season that’s supposed to be the happiest, most easygoing time of the year.

I’d love to report that I have matured a year later. Alas, I’m fighting for acceptance and gratitude all over again.

In the midst of this struggle, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it looks like at street level to receive my own summer life instead of pining for opportunities and experiences that aren’t mine to have. This post could be an instructive piece about the evils of envy and how we should instead be grateful and realize how #blessed we are.

And this is true. Envy is bad. Gratitude is where it’s at.

But if the truth doesn’t travel to my heart and make a home there, it’s all just knowledge. I need truth to link arms with me in everyday ways so that what’s in my head can sync with my heart and overflow with love into my real life.

Thus these 10 tactics or suggestions or considerations or whatever you want to call them. They’re helping me in my quest to receive a summer life that does not include an Airstream, a fancy vacation, super lazy days, or even our annual July trip to Michigan.

If your summer feels ordinary or less-than, if you’re fighting to receive your summer life too, I hope these truths set you free to embrace the summer you have, even if it’s not the summer you want to have.

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1. Don’t compare your sink full of dirty dishes with someone else’s summer highlight reel.

Imagine this moment: The day has just begun. You wake up to a headache, last night’s dishes, and children fighting over the iPod charger. You pour a cup of coffee and open Instagram or Facebook, only to see friends on an anniversary trip, skipping through the blue waters of Tahiti. They are so #blessed.

Suddenly your life is the worst.

You do not appreciate your home, your night of sleep, the food in your pantry, or the fighting children. Because Tahiti.

But real life is not lived in highlight reel moments. When we receive those moments, they are worthy of celebrating. But the mundane moments matter too. And to begrudge them because everyone else seems to be living their best summer life now, well, it makes a mockery of our beautiful, ordinary lives.

2. Disconnect if it helps you stay present.

I know, I know. Being “present” is such a buzz word right now. But guess what? We’re still not doing it.

From time to time I simply have to go off social media and the internet. My emotional responses while scrolling through Instagram are almost always a barometer for the state of my soul. Judgmentalism? Envy? Eye-rolling? Anxiety? When those familiar companions show up, it’s time for me to walk away for a while.

Whether it’s the envied experiences of others or an attention-grabbing post we just have to read, the truth is — we don’t have the capacity to handle all the input that’s catapulted at us day in and day out.

Last Saturday I left my phone on the kitchen counter and went for a walk in the hottest part of the day. I didn’t care; I just knew I needed the space to disconnect. As I walked and sweated and prayed, my head cleared and my soul breathed. An hour later I returned with peace and perspective, feeling more at home in my own life.

We’re the only ones who can put up boundaries and choose what we let in. Each one of us has different thresholds, but here are some things I’ve noticed about myself:

When I walk away from the online world, I’m more attentive to the little world that’s right in front of me.
I notice the gifts of my own life and feel content to tuck them away in my heart, just for me.
I pay attention to the people who matter most.
I’m more engaged and focused.
My mind feels less cluttered.

I’m not hating on the internet or on social media. I became a writer because I started a blog ten years ago. I earn a living creating online content. I love Instagram. Some of my dearest friends are those I met through the blogosphere. But I’m learning when and how to draw boundaries that help me receive my own summer life instead of feeling like it doesn’t quite measure up.

3. Fight back with gratitude.

Apparently Ann Voskamp was on to something when she started that one thousand gifts thing. Here’s a little story from a few weeks ago:

I was in a beautiful place with people I love. But for two days, all of it was shrouded in gloom because I wasn’t getting my way about a few things. There were experiences I wanted to have and none of them were working out. For a while I clung to my resentment, miserable though I was, because there’s a sick sort of satisfaction we get from entitlement. Thankfully I got fed up with myself.

“Fine!” I said to no one in particular. “I’ll start counting the gifts.”

By the time I’d named even a few things I was grateful for, the entitlement began to melt away and thankfulness took up residence in its place. Self-pity and resentment are powerful emotions. But here’s the good news: gratitude is a powerful emotion too. It’s like Ann says, “Fight emotion with emotion.”

It works.

4. Remember that selfishness never takes a vacation.

It’s why families still fight at Disneyworld, the happiest place on earth.

This ever-present brokenness is something it’s taken us years to remember and to plan for. But summer, with its more relaxed schedule, special travel plans, and happy expectations, is one of those seasons when I subconsciusly expect all sunshine and no rain. Ironically, some of our worst marital conflicts have actually been on vacation. And some of our kids’ ugliest moments have also been on vacation.

Also, these lazy days of summer seem to bring out the worst sibling squabbles.

Knowing that brokenness travels with us wherever we go and accompanies our families in each and every season — it’s strangely helpful. When family togetherness goes off the rails, we don’t fall into a shock-induced despair. We know that we’re messy people living in a messy world. We look to God to fill us up with grace for ourselves and for our people.

Which is the perfect segue to my next point.

5. Lower your expectations.

I have an honorary doctorate in high expectations. This applies to myself and to those around me. Bless us all.

But when I allow for my life and my people to be messy, for things to not go as planned, we’re a much happier lot. I call it “expectational margin.” This point about low expectations may sound dismal and lazy, but I like to think of it as grace.

I will forever love this photo of my niece. Is she depressed that she’s swimming in a rubbermaid container on Aunt Marian’s driveway and not at a beach resort? She is not. Tiny Tabitha has delightfully low expectations and is just happy to be here. #blessed

6. Know that every day doesn’t have to be a memory maker.

Raise your hand if it feels like there’s a lot of pressure to make all the summer days special-ish. We live in a Pinteresty, Instragrammy culture of bucket lists, of moments we can hashtag, of documenting every adorable experience. And while that can be fun, the cumulative effect is that it makes our everyday moments feel like they’re not measuring up.

My kids tend to remember summer not for all the special things we’ve done but for the break from school, the later bedtimes, the relaxed schedule, and watching TV together as a family. That’s how I remember the summers of my childhood too.

Summer is its own stand-alone kind of special. This reminds me that the pressure’s off.

7. Remember that the free stuff is often what we remember most and best.

My boys found a bunch of wiffle balls at the park and it was like Christmas.

My youngest son is watching dog training videos on YouTube.

My daughter and I are partaking in the glorious Ministry of Netflix again this summer.

I was reflecting this week on what I loved most about summer as a kid:

Playing with kids at the church softball field and how the water fountain leaked enough for us to make mud pies in the red Carolina dirt
Riding my bike down to the creek and the freedom I felt
Watching the Sunday night ABC family movie
Having picnics in the living room
Catching fireflies

Childhood is its own sort of vacation.

8. Celebrate summertime with story time.

Novels, audiobooks, read-alouds, movies. Summer begs us to slow down and get lost in good stories.

Even if I’m staying at home all summer, a good book or evening movie feel like ridiculous luxuries. Especially if there’s ice cream in the house.

9. Consider each summer season’s pros and cons.

Every season of parenthood has its summertime pros and cons. When my kids were little, taking them to the pool felt like an Olympic sport. {Guess what I don’t miss? Swim diapers.} But then those exhausting cherubs came home exhausted. They took naps and I had time to also take a nap or read a book or paint furniture or write. Bonus: They went to bed earlier and we enjoyed kid-free evenings.

These days they can get dressed and take showers and fix food ALL BY THEMSELVES. It’s glorious. But I’ve been crazy stressed because summer hasn’t felt relaxed. I’ve been driving people to and from places. A lot. And it’s a challenge to find long stretches of time during the day to get my work done.

It’s a busier summer because the people who live here are older and have more scheduled lives.

They no longer go to bed early. (Boo!) But we can all stay up late watching movies together that aren’t animated. (Yay!)

Each season has its own gifts and its own burdens. Being mindful of this reality helps me receive this current summer season with more grace and optimism.

10. Take time to nourish yourself.

I did an Instagram post a couple of weeks ago about how fixing myself a proper breakfast mid-morning changed the emotional trajectory of my day. I had been up half the night for no particular reason. Which meant I slept through my alarm. By the time I woke up, the kids were fighting and resistant to responsibility. I’d lost precious early-morning work hours, and I commenced to stressing and hollering.

My default is to grab coffee and race downstairs to crank out some work. But I went against my instinct. I slowed down. I cooked an actual meal for myself. I read for a few minutes. This 30 minute time-out nourished my body and my soul. It’s hard to be kind to others when you haven’t been kind to yourself.

I really do love summer, but each year it’s an adjustment. This introvert mom has frayed nerves by the end of the day. Because I work from home but my kids are also at home, it gets a little cuckoo around here. Nourishing myself in small ways, like a real breakfast {or that ombre pink drink from Starbucks}, feels like kindness.

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I’d love to know how you receive your summer life. You can share in the comments, shoot me an e-mail, or leave your thoughts on social media.

Happy ordinary summering, everyone!

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4 Things to Tell Our Kids {and Ourselves} the Day After a Bitter Election

November 9, 2016 by Marian Leave a Comment

I went to bed at 10:20 last night. This election season had already robbed our nation of its dignity and decorum. I wasn’t about to let it rob me of my sleep.

I woke up a little before 6 am and immediately checked my phone. I ran into the living room where my husband sat and asked in disbelief, “Did he WIN?!?”

“Yes,” he said. “Donald Trump won.”

And then in a reaction that I could not anticipate or explain, I leaned against the knotty pine wall and wept. They were not tears of joy.

This post is not about my political views, which are a mixed bag. I don’t really fit anywhere or with anyone. I’ll simply say that I didn’t vote for either main party candidate. Because I don’t live in a battleground state, I had the luxury of voting my conscience. Sort of.

I also live in a house that is somewhat divided. None of my children are of legal voting age but they have opinions nonetheless. The five of us passionate people have not been able to calmly talk about politics for sometime now. I’m a misfit even in my own home.

As I fed my boys oatmeal and then drove my teenagers to school, I told them a few things. I cried a lot and they looked at me, bewildered. But there were things they needed to know before they walked into their diverse community of peers and it was my responsibility to tell them.

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1. Everyone is feeling differently about the results. Please be kind and sensitive.

For example, your hispanic friends might feel afraid today. Their family’s status here may not be secure. You were born into the privileges that come with white skin, American citizenship, financial stability, educational opportunity, and freedom. So was I. We didn’t choose these privileges or ask for them. We possessed them as soon as soon as exited our mother’s wombs and entered the world.

You have friends at your school who tell a different story. Please consider their story.

In the words of Atticus Finch,

…If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.

If ever there was a time for walking around in someone else’s skin, surely it’s now.

There are also those who are glad or relieved today. For example, hardworking small business owners who have been shackled by legislation to the point of laying off employees and not being able to provide for the families of their workers.

This heavy responsibility has kept them up at night. Perhaps they have a bit of hope today.

We need to understand this too.

Every vote has a story behind it. If we don’t make space in our minds and hearts to understand this, we will continue to be marked by division instead of connection.

2. Listen.

“Kids, whether you’re on Twitter {remember, I have teenagers}, in the lunchroom, on the bus, or in the classroom — practice listening. In this world where everyone has something to say and is rushing to say it fastest and loudest and angriest and funniest, choose instead to listen. And as you listen, seek to understand where the fear or relief or concern or anger is really coming from.”

One of the redeeming gifts of this election is a text thread between my siblings and me. We didn’t all vote the same but we do share common hopes, fears, concerns, and the desperate need for comic relief. Most of all, we love and respect and trust one another. We’ve been texting obsessively for three days now, sharing the funny things our kids have said and passing along the best stuff from Twitter.

My brother and his wife have a five-year-old daughter with special needs. When his two older kids saw the video of Trump mocking someone with disabilities, that was all they needed. In the clearcut understanding that only children possess, a vote for Trump, in their minds, was a vote of hate against their little sister.

As grown-ups, we know that’s not necessarily true. That it’s more nuanced than that.

But it’s easy to understand why my niece and nephew feel that way, isn’t it?

Seek to listen in such a way that it’s easy to understand why people feel the way they do, even if you don’t agree. Understanding doesn’t equal agreement. But understanding and empathy go a long way in preserving relationship and strengthening community.

3. We don’t all agree on the government’s responsibilities to its people, but Jesus is clear on our responsibilities to all people.

What if we cared more about our individual responsibilities to others than about securing our individual rights?

What if we dared to love those who are racially, socially, and politically different than us, just like Jesus did?

One of my favorite examples of this is the Samaritan woman at the well.

The Samaritans were a racially mixed people who had thwarted Jewish efforts to rebuild the temple. They were long-time enemies who mixed other beliefs with Scripture.

Furthermore, this woman was, well, a woman. Tradition mandated that Jesus not even speak to her. He was a man, a Jew, a rabbi. And she wasn’t just a woman, she was a woman of loose morals. A woman who had gone through five husbands and was living with a man she wasn’t married to.

But Jesus.

He crossed the lines of race, gender, class, and respectability because he loved her. He sought her out. Read the story and you’ll discover that He — someone who held all the power — makes himself indebted to her.

He defied social and religious law for her.

Why? Because the reality of who He was — truth and love and hope — was her ultimate need. Jesus did not manifest himself to her in pages of right theology, in social programs, or economic legislation.

He simply went to her in love and truth. Not love without truth or truth without love. He carried both.

And He went to great lengths to do so, changing his route to situate himself in her life. This means he took action. He crossed every respectable barrier to sit beside her at the well in the heat of the day.

{Before the chapter ends we see that His next miracle was for a wealthy official, proof that spiritual poverty is common to all of humanity. Don’t neglect loving and serving your rich neighbor simply because he’s rich. Need and lack come in all forms.}

4. Let’s be willing to do it.

If you’re someone who has said that the rapidly expanding and encroaching government has taken over the responsibilities of the church, I have good news.

You might get the chance to put your money with your mouth is.

If you’re someone who is in a state of grief this morning because you’re afraid of what this election means for the vulnerable and marginalized, I have good news.

You too will get the chance to put your money where your mouth is.

The people, the causes, the social justice work that matters to you — it matters just as much now and you can be part of the solution.

I told my big kids that certain people in our community might need more of our help now and this might cost us something. Maybe not immediately, but maybe eventually. Are we willing to do this?

And to be fair and honest, the same would be true if the election had turned out differently.

Whenever freedoms are lost {or not there to begin with}, we have a responsibility to step in. This will always cost us something.

Jesus stepped into a broken world to do something about it. He knew it would cost him his life but He did it anyway, for us and for the world. And now He makes his home within actual people, imperfect though we are.

Regardless of how you voted or how you feel today, let the power and presence and hope of Jesus lead you into broken places.

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Friends, what does the Lord ask of us on the day after a bitter election?

The same thing He has always asked of us.

To act justly
and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
{Micah 6:8b}

We can do these things as we equip our children, as we go to our jobs, as we prepare the meal, as we practice hospitality, as we listen and seek to understand, as we stand with those who don’t have the privileges we have, as we stand with those who voted differently than we did.

May Jesus himself walk beside each of us today. May He remind us that He’s our only true hope. And may He prepare us for the good and sacred work that lies ahead.

Postscript:

There’s a reason I don’t write about politics. It’s not the purpose of this space and I honestly don’t want to spend my mental and emotional energy having these kinds of conversations on the internet. I’m not cut out for it and I hope you’ll respect that. I feel like I have the kindest readers on the planet but with politics, well, it feels risky. I know you won’t all agree with what I’ve written here and that’s okay.

Still, I do have a purpose for this space. I’m all about helping you recapture the possibility of your right-now life, no matter how bleak or messy it appears. I write to remind us of what’s true as we live in the tension between the right-now and the hoped-for. Everything I write has to pass through that filter before I hit publish.

Some of you are already hopeful today. Some of you are not. Some of you don’t know what you are. I pray that these words provide a bit of hope and perspective, no matter where you are or how you’re processing things.

Grace and Peace,
Marian

P.S. These resources have been especially helpful to me in recent years as I learn more about what it means to live with compassion in my community.

Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just by Timothy Keller

Falling Free: Rescued From the Life I Always Wanted by Shannan Martin

Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion by Father Gregory Boyle

How the Broken + Beautiful Lives of Others Help Us Live a More Compassionate Story {A Book and a Giveaway}

September 30, 2016 by Marian Leave a Comment

I don’t remember the first time I visited the online home of “Flower Patch Farmgirl” but it was at least five or six years ago. She was a wife and mom of three little ones and they lived the most beautiful, idyllic life in a white Indiana farmhouse.

I bonded with her immediately, weird as that sounds because it was over the internet. But you know what I’m talking about. She simply felt like a kindred soul with her weakness for thrift stores, abiding love for salsa, honest dish about faith, and thrown-together recipes.

Over time, I fell ever more in love with her writing, her humor, her quirk, her foodie ways, her perfectly mismatched style that swirled with gingham and vintage florals and chippy paint. But I especially loved the way she could spin a tale like nobody’s business from the raw material of the everyday.

Like many others, I followed her blog as the months tumbled into years. I noticed as she began to write more about the gritty things and not just the pretty things. I paid attention as interesting characters began to show up in her story and she did the unsafe and unthinkable thing of letting them in — jailbirds, needy teenagers, babies.

I followed her story in real time —

As her husband lost his well-paying job and they had no choice but to stick a for sale sign in the yard of that swoony farm house. {So long American Dream.}

As she endured many months in a “Betty Draper” rental that boasted a carpeted kitchen. {So long perfect house.}

As they built a modest home on the wrong side of the tracks. {So long safe neighborhood.}

As her husband became a jail chaplain. {So long well-paying job.}

As they enrolled their kids in a failing school and did the good work of rolling up their shirtsleeves and loving it as their own. {So long coveted school district.}

As she stayed true to her quirky, swoony style and made a less fancy house a true home. {Hello awesome, welcoming house in the ‘hood.}

As they opened that home and shared their lives with the vulnerable community around them. {Hello friends who are now family.}

In case you haven’t picked up by now, Shannan has a story. And while it might sound like a story of disappointment and loss, it’s ultimately a story about finding more in less, about the way that God sometimes rescues us from what we’ve always wanted.

Though Shannan and I are separated by states and circumstances, I feel honored to have watched this narrative unfold over the years, to turn the page of her story with each new blog post or Instagram photo. So many of her questions have been my questions and she’s given voice to them in a way that makes me feel a little less weird and alone.

I’m so grateful that she’s written that story into a real book, one that’s for all of us. It’s called Falling Free: Rescued From the Life I Always Wanted.

Real talk. When we hear about a story like this, it’s easy to fixate on the details and feel like we’re not measuring up, like we’re not sacrificing enough, like we’re not compassionate enough or missional enough.

And by “we,” I mean “I.”

The truth is, I don’t life smack in the middle of a vulnerable community — not in the sense of economic poverty and chronic stress of the most dire nature. My neighbors have heat and air conditioning and enough food.

But here’s the thing. I’ve watched God work his redemption in Shannan’s life over time. Regardless of the details, her story gives me hope that my own story can become one of greater compassion and less self-absorption, that these gifts will flow through the unique channel of my family’s own place and people and story.

Mostly, it gives me hope that the broken things in my own life can be redeemed.

Shannan and me at the Allume Conference last year when we finally got to meet in person! #happyday

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While the details of our two lives look different, I’ve been increasingly drawn to the “margins” as I’ve gotten older, especially in recent years. Not because I’m so upstanding and noble but because I’m not. I’ve lived through some unsavory chapters of my own life. Things are still messy in ways I wish they weren’t.

Maybe a pull toward mercy and justice is simply what happens as you see your own brokenness with more clarity. I’m an utter mess apart from grace.

In the words of Tim Keller,

If a person has grasped the meaning of God’s grace in his heart, he will do justice. If he doesn’t live justly, then he may say with his lips that he is grateful for God’s grace, but in his heart he is far from him. If he doesn’t care about the poor, it reveals that at best he doesn’t understand the grace he has experienced, and at worst he has not really encountered the saving mercy of God. Grace should make you just.
~ A Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes You Just by Timothy Keller

Is it just me or does this truth makes us a bit squirrelly? Yet we can all attest to a measure of this. We’re more compassionate when we’ve been on the receiving end of compassion.

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Jesus himself left the riches and abundance of Heaven and perfect intimacy He shared with the Father to do something about this broken world. I don’t ponder the ridiculous love and sacrifice of that — not enough anyway. The brokenness of this world broke his own heart. And He said, “I’m going to do something about that. I’m going to be the light that shines into the dark corners and seedy places and deceived hearts. I’m going to rescue them.”

His ongoing work of redemption doesn’t require our help. But how unthinkably kind that He brings us into the beauty of his work. As we assist in the rescue of others — from their lack, their pain, their despair — we too are rescued.

That’s Shannan’s story. She reminds us that Christ himself invites his children to be life and light, to walk into the dark places just like He did. As we do, He goes with us.

My heart breaks easily and often. Despite books and counseling and self-talk, my emotional boundaries are terrible. Even so, I know that my heart is not always broken enough — that often I’m prone to show more compassion to someone I barely know than to the ones who live in my own house.

Everywhere I look, there are neighbors to love — my husband, my kids, my church, the Section 8 apartment complex around the corner that I’ve become attached to.

I want a memo from God and a checklist telling me exactly how I’m supposed to live compassionately in my specific life and community. But that’s not the Gospel.

The Gospel does what instruction can never do.

Instead of a checklist, He sends me Jesus.

Jesus through the stories of others, like Shannan.

Jesus providing small opportunities that He orchestrates.

Jesus reminding me that small is okay, even good. After all, He came small and mostly unnoticed too.

For two years I’ve simply prayed and tried to pay attention. This is slow work.

And ultimately, this is God’s work. It’s his story. And stories happen over time. From Genesis to Revelation, we see one long, slow, unfolding narrative of redemption.

God’s brand of redemption has little to do with us getting it all right and everything to do with simply showing up.

Showing up with what we have — our sin and baggage and brokenness, yes. But also showing up with our real, one-of-a-kind selves — with our gifts that may need a good dusting off, with our hearts that break for a specific kind of brokenness, with our stories we wish we could rewrite, with our unique way of moving in the world in the way that only we can.

More and more I am beginning to see that in my work and in my life, I am just showing up to the table that Jesus has set for me that day.

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Falling Free is a story of real people doing this simple but not-at-all-easy work. The work of showing up and pouring out, fears and questions and all.

It’s an invitation to a beautiful, messy, mismatched, compassionate table.

Shannan’s honesty compels me and always has. She doesn’t have it all figured out, even now that she’s written a book. And maybe that’s what I’ve always loved most. She invites you in — into the hard questions, into the awkward relationships, into the ongoing struggle and the unfolding beauty, into the work Jesus is doing in her little corner of the world through regular people.

And that’s what I see in her continuing story — a girl who keeps showing up at the table Jesus has set for her and inviting the broken people around her to join the feast.

Let this book move you, challenge you, and make you squirm. I cried and laughed. I wrote question marks in the margins because I’m just not sure about some things. I scribbled Amen at the end and had a good cry. I had a big ol’ conversation with this book. I still am. And I hope you will too.

My counselor once told me that are stories aren’t just for us to keep under lock and key. We’re to steward them, to tell them in the way only we can. Not just for us but for all who will be buoyed by the hope we toss out into the world.

I’m so grateful for Shannan’s story and for her willingness to release it into the world. May it inspire each of us toward greater compassion in our little corners of the world.

{Now scoot off to amazon and get your copy.}

Oh yeah! If you’d like a chance to win a copy of your own, just leave a comment. Anything you like. That’s it!

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For the Mom Who Has a Complicated Relationship With Summer: 5 Lazy Tips to Keep You Sane and Happy

June 7, 2016 by Marian Leave a Comment

We finished school on June 1st. Yay! To celebrate, I’d planned to take the kids out for lunch to inaugurate Summer 2016, going so far as to shower, put on mascara, and wear non-yoga pants.

But within minutes of picking up the last child from school, they were already fighting about where to go for lunch. One child wanted a fro-yo extravaganza. Another wanted a kids meal. The third one wanted an array of lunch options, followed by dessert.

I just wanted some gratitude and a minivan sans strife.

After pulling into a random parking lot and facilitating peace negotiations, we decided on our local Chick-Fil-A where the line was as long as I’ve ever seen it. In the proceeding minutes, I made a number of idle threats to each of them while lamenting our less-than-ideal summer kickoff.

Food has a way of making people seem human again and within a few minutes, we were all laughing at our outside table, talking about plans for next couple of months.

The whole situation felt like a metaphor for summer — a rough transition, selfish clamoring, dashed ideals, and eventual {though short-lived} peace and goodwill.

Summer, you throw me for a loop every year.

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Here’s the thing about my mom self. Maybe you can relate. I crave order and routine but appreciate plenty of room for spontaneity. I need structure but don’t like too many rules. Over the years I’ve tried all sorts of list-y things to keep us sane during the summer. Few of them had any staying power, probably because I, as the resident grown-up, am required to enforce the standards I create and sometimes I choose to take a nap instead.

So consider this “The Lazy Mom’s Guide to Summer Sanity.” These are the loose ideas that have worked for us as well as a few things I’m hoping to try this year.

1. Incentives are your best friend.

For you and for them. Because I work and write from home, I’m planning to wake up early and get my stuff done during the morning hours, while also keeping kids busy-ish with a few jobs around the house, reading books, walking the dog, etc. {Even as I type this, it sounds a bit like a pipe dream but one can hope.}

If we all finish our work, we get to go swimming, watch movies, play video games, stop at QT for slushies, etc. Work before play helps establish a loose routine, gets the work done, and rewards all of us at the same time.

2. Don’t freak out about screen time.

My boys last summer, gathered ’round ye olde iPod, memorizing raps.

Your kids will not die or get considerably more stupid by having extra screen time during the summer months. I often wish I was raising kids in the days before screens existed but we don’t get to choose our moments in history. For better or for worse, it’s 2016.

At our house, we have TVs, Netflix, and a Playstation. And my older two have personal devices. Even though we try to limit their access, we still have screens aplenty and I’m sure their brains aren’t awesome for it. At the same time, I have fond childhood memories of watching the same movies over and over again, playing Frogger on our Atari 5200, and watching murder mysteries with my mom. I still love movies and TV dramas. Story, whether in book-form, audio-form, or screen-form, enriches my life and provides a much-needed timeout while I do laundry or take time to unwind. I daresay it does the same for my kids.

3. Let the summer lists do the bossing.

Years ago, I got tired of “Mom, I’m bored!” and “Mom, can I have a snack?” every 15 minutes. So I made lists and put them on the fridge. They took all of five minutes to make.

Let the Snack List Do the Bossing: The Lazy Mom’s Guide to Keeping Kids Fed

“Mom, What Can I Do?” The Lazy Mom’s Guide to Supervising Children

It wasn’t a perfect system but it helped. Obviously the details need revision each summer because my teenage kids are no longer interested in the things their 6-year-old selves enjoyed. Nor do they eat Go-gurts. It’s the concept that matters. Kids need helpful reminders and you need a break from “Mom!” every five minutes.

4. Make a SIMPLE Summer bucket list.

As in, each kid picks one or two realistic things. This gives you some loose goals without feeling like a failure by the end of the summer because you didn’t cross off all the things on your list. Some of ours are:

Visit a local fun park for mini-golf, go-karts, etc.
See Finding Dory together.
Tour a local historic / scenic place we’ve never visited.
{With my older two kids} Summer binge-watch a couple of Netflix series.

5. Keep a list of what you do.

A piece of notebook paper + a pen + a magnet + the front of your refrigerator = a written record of what you actually do this summer. Consider it a gift for your end-of-summer self, consolation that summer was better than it felt like on the days when the kids won’t stop fighting and it’s 1,000 degrees outside.

I’ve finished plenty of summers feeling like a loser mom who didn’t give my kids enough meaningful experiences / spend enough quality time with them. This summer I’m keeping a list and writing down everything from movies we watched and books we read to places we traveled and friends who visited.

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During the school year, summer always sounds like one extended vacation. But the truth is, our selfishness, idealism, and daily work don’t go on vacation. This means that summer can feel like a long hot season of dashed expectations.

I can’t solve all your summer probs or mine. But sometimes a few simple hacks or a change in mindset can go a long way in making things more realistically awesome for everyone involved.

Next week, we’ll talk about how to receive your own life this summer. Because sometimes it feels like everyone is vacationing in Belize while you’re stuck at home with a rubbermaid container as a swimming pool in your driveway.

What are your favorite summer sanity-savers?

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I’m all about helping you recapture the possibility of your right-now life.

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{P.S. I’ll be hanging out on Instagram this summer. Join me?}

The Bare Bones of a Semi-Balanced Life. {And Permission to Lie Down.}

January 27, 2015 by Marian Leave a Comment

{This is Part 2 of Figuring Out Your Priorities. When You’re Bad at Figuring Out Your Priorities.}

I spent four and half years as a graduate student, surrounded by some of the best brains I’d ever encountered. The 17th floor of Patterson Office Tower was home to tenured or soon-to-be-tenured History scholars who spent days and nights cultivating their minds, furthering their research, instructing the masses, overseeing T.A.s, presenting papers at conferences, and scrambling to get published.

I loved these people. I still do. Fascinating and novel and incredibly generous, professional academics have a way of bubbling with an ambition and enthusiasm that’s contagious. I’ll admit, it rubbed off on me during those years and I was gunning for that kind of career. The life of the mind seemed a wonderful sort of vocation.

But dialed down just a notch.

Here’s the thing about those brilliant and prolific scholars. {Keep in mind I’m generalizing here.} They were not always the most well-rounded of folks. Their life was their work and their work was their life. Many weren’t married, though a number of them had tried it.

Over time I noticed that family relationships seemed strained and commuter marriages not uncommon. The younger female professors were panicking to get tenure while pumping breast-milk in their offices. More than one of these academic moms confessed to me that their houses were a disaster and they constantly struggled with guilt.

And while I wanted this to be my life, I got a little scared that this could actually be my life.

Though I did mostly love these marvelous people who mentored me so well during those sweet and intense years, there were some sizable egos on the 17th floor and we all knew who to avoid. Academia can be a vortex of pride, ambition, brains, and sub-standard social skills. Not to mention a complete wasteland of fashionable attire. It was like drowning in a sea of earth tones, coffee-stained oxfords, bad suits, and awkward small talk

God taught me many lessons during that time in my life, most of them having nothing at all to do with academics. I learned that when you focus solely on furthering your strengths and avoiding your areas of weakness, you may be a rock star academic but a half-hearted spouse.

You may be an impressive crusader but a worn-out parent.

You may have the respect of your colleagues but no real friends.

Now before all the professionals get mad at me, it goes the other way too.

You may be killing it as a homeschool mom but your marriage is merely cohabitation.

You may be queen of the school volunteers while those who matter most get the leftovers.

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These are simply the obvious outcomes of an unbalanced life. That’s because we’re human. And humans are finite.

I’ve been guilty from every angle.

When I was first married, I made an idol of my husband to the neglect of my own self.
Later on I focused too much on career to the detriment of my marriage.
I’ve put my best energy into being a stellar teacher and been bankrupt of energy for my own young children.
Then as a homeschool mom, I gave the best of myself to their education but had zero left for my husband and other relationships.
Even now as a stay-at-home-mom / writer, I can easily give away my prime energy to projects or ministry or hopeful pursuits while swatting away the questions of my children or ignoring the presence of my husband.

So what’s the solution?

I don’t have it figured out. But I’m trying to dig through it and words help me do that. Here’s what I’m trying.

1. Anchoring my mind and heart in truth. As I’ve wrestled with these issues of prioritization and balance, God’s impressed certain Scriptures upon me. They’re his words to me that say, “Look, you don’t have to figure this out on your own. I’ve given you a compass. Meditate on these things and walk hand in hand with me through your days along my bedrock path of truth.” Here are some of my anchors.

The first shall be last. Translation for me: It’s not about my big self and my ambitious goals. Not ultimately anyway.
God is my provider. Translation for me: Give myself to the God-ordained most important things even if it looks meager on paper. He provides differently yet lovingly and personally for each of us. Sometimes this resembles lack and sometimes it resembles plenty. Take my cues from the lilies of the field, not the moguls of the world.
Taking up my cross every day. Translation for me: Denying myself and carrying things that are unpleasant and may sometimes feel like outright suffering. Bearing burdens. Often the burdens of others. Usually the burdens of my family. It means absorbing their anger, their entitlement, and sometimes their scorn, just like Christ did for us.
Caring more about those who can’t give me anything in return rather than the other way around. Translation for me: Don’t seek out the popular or the influential. Quit being impressed by impressive people.
The only opinion that ultimately matters is already secured. Forever. My opinion of myself doesn’t even matter. Translation for me: “Blessed self-forgetfulness.” Because I’m in Christ, the verdict has already been issued and I can live from a place of freedom.

2. Writing down the bare bones. And I mean, the really basic stuff. Just write it on a post-it and stick it on your bathroom mirror. I’ll go first. During this season of my life, the list looks something like this.

Love God.
Love my husband.
Love my children.
Take care of myself. {Self care for me includes everything from rest and solitude to margin and creativity.}
Manage the home and life that God has given us.
Love those who God places in my path.
Trust God to provide for our needs.
Trust God to help us provide for others’ needs.
Be available with my gifts, seeking God’s wisdom.
Be available with my weaknesses, seeking God’s strength.

You’ll notice that I did not write down: figure out vocational stuff, read more books, be more available to others, be more involved in my church, etc.

That’s because I’m talking about the bare bones here. And the bare bones vary from season to season and from person to person.

Right now I’m in a season of needing to be very available for my family. My kids are getting older and busier. They need to get places and I’m the one who can take them. They eat more than they once did and I’ve found that procuring and preparing food is a bigger deal than it used to be. Their emotional lives are wider and deeper than when they were little and as a mom, this is way taxing. Way.

In the midst of these needs, I still have a marriage to cultivate. I long to do more than simply keep it on life support during these very full days and years of raising kids.

When my own ambition is nipping at my heels, when the tornado is swirling with blog post ideas and book proposals and laundry and other people’s expectations and other people’s accomplishments and helping out with this ministry and Marian needs a nap forthelove, I have to stop the world for a moment.

Or a long series of moments.

I have to flee from the chaotic land of All The Things and return home to a place of simple trust.

This is so much harder than I make it sound. I can write these things one minute and be in hot pursuit of something unscripted the next minute. I don’t believe that the bare bones rule out all of my personal endeavors. I hope and trust that God will allow them to fit into the small gaps as they should but that forcing them into cramped spaces squashes overrides the bare bones.

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In thinking through this issue for yourself, here’s a helpful question, one I’ve heard others ask as they’re establishing priorities:

What are the things only you can do?

Here’s what I’m talking about.

Only I can be my husband’s wife and my kids’ mom.

Only I can reflect the workmanship of God with the one-of-a-kind combination of strengths and weaknesses and backstory He’s given me. This means I choose to prioritize studying and writing, beauty and continued healing. They are the ways I reflect the world around me, give voice to the world within me, influence the community that surrounds me, and bring glory to the One who created me.

Though I’m the designated domestic engineer for now, the reality is this: Other people can prepare our meals {like the deli or a restaurant.} Other people can be hired to clean my house or get the groceries. Right now we do these things ourselves but another season may come along when I give more to a vocation and we hire out the tasks I currently provide.

What I can’t outsource is a wife for my husband or a mom for my kids or a heart that communicates exactly like mine. Though I’m tempted to think someone else would be far better at those first two, I trust that for better or for worse, I’m the one they’ve got. I might as well show up for the job like I mean it, less than stellar track record and all.

If your own life feels topsy turvy, if all the things and all the people seem important all of the time, coming back home can be as simple as pen and paper:

1. What are my truth anchors?

2. What are my bare bones?

3. What are the things only I can do?

4. How has God gifted me and how can I honor those gifts right now?

5. What are the daily non-negotiables, even though they highlight my weaknesses? Might I pray to honor even the weaknesses, to lean into the everyday less-than-loveliness, knowing that God comes in with his strength, grace, and yes, even joy?

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God has placed you in a unique place, in a unique time, surrounded by specific people, and equipped with one-of-a-kind gifts. He invites us to trust him with everything — our big ambitions and our seemingly small days.

When we begin to get angsty, envious, or discontent, we may find that it’s rooted in a lack of trust.

A funny thing happens as I humbly acknowledge that there is a time for everything and every season and therefore I will surely not squeeze a lifetime’s worth of endeavors into this one season…

Instead of frustration, I actually find freedom.

And also a place to lie down.

I suggest you find one too. Because Marian is bossy about naps and knows that rest is often the most fruitful thing an overwhelmed gal can do.

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Though I’m grateful to live in a time of so much possibility, I’m easy overwhelmed by … so many possibilities.

What are your thoughts on staking down your priorities, living a quiet life, and focusing on the bare bones in a world that invites you in a hundred different directions at once?

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That Time I Put Liz Claiborne Labels in my Target Shoes. {and a fun announcement}

November 18, 2014 by Marian Leave a Comment

For some reason, it’s always the extra-large, salmon-colored, v-neck sweater from my dad’s closet that stands out the most. Adolescent me was known to raid the wardrobes of everyone in the household in my crazed attempt to put together a new outfit for school.

Desperate times called for desperate sweaters.

I’d been buying most of my own clothes since I was about twelve years old, at which point I begin raking in the cash from all those $2.50 an hour babysitting gigs. My teenage years — the stage that a girl really, really cares about her image — were rather lean for my family. My dad was a church-planting pastor in the midwest and my mom stayed at home with us until the youngest of us four kids started school, at which point she went back to work as a teacher.

We were not in any way poor; we simply didn’t have much “extra.” Don’t for a moment feel sorry for me. I honestly couldn’t be more grateful. Those years wove themselves into the person I am — resourceful, creative, and spurred on by scarcity rather than shut down by it. Besides, we were rich in all the ways that really mattered.

I may have been shy, insecure, and embarrassingly small for my age but my love of beauty — pretty things, lovely clothes, beautiful colors — was larger than life. My family will tell you it’s just how I’m wired. I started playing dress-up as a toddler and I’ve never really stopped.

Fashion Note #1: Scarves are an easy & timeless accessory. Also? One should always dress for success, even if you’re just playing Lucy to your Charlie Brown brother.

Fashion Note #2: A deflated rubber ball can work as a stylish cap. And it points attention away from the fact that your well-intentioned mom gave you a boy haircut.

Young Marian studied and memorized everything like it was her job — from the outfits the twenty-something ladies wore to church with their perfectly matched pumps and endless array of twist-a-beads, to what the fashionable girls wore to school and the back-to-school editions of Seventeen magazine. I saved up my hard-earned dollars for Benetton tees, the tiniest Coach purse they sold, and a Liz Claiborne wallet.

When you’re that age, you simply want to fit in and while I could never really do that — at least in my estimation of things — I resolved to die trying.

Which is why I’d end up in my dad’s closet snatching a very large man’s sweater off the hanger and draping it over my petite frame, grabbing the paisley silk scarf from my mom’s dress coat and tying it around my waist as a belt, and slipping on my Target flats with the Liz Claiborne labels I’d carefully adhered to the insoles.

Wait, what was that you just wrote Marian? Are you telling the world you put designer stickers in your Target shoes?

Yes, that’s exactly what I’m telling you. I created my own knock-off. Talk about shopping the house. And really, I can’t believe I’ve never told you this because it’s totally one of my best stories ever. So go grab a cup of coffee and settle in.

Fashion Note #3: When choosing contrasting colors, go with the same level of boldness for all the hues. In the words of Clinton & Stacy, “It doesn’t have to match. It just has to go.” And in the words of 5-year-old me, “You are the boss of your outfits & accessories.”

The Story That Beats All

I was probably in seventh or eighth grade and we had a Target in our city. Now this was decades before Target was the awesomeness that it is now, decades before famous designers were lining up to create their own limited lines for the shopping proletariat. Those early Targets were scarce, uncool, and suffered from bad lighting.

Remember, this was the 80s, when department stores ruled the day and you were nobody without Guess jeans and tiny embroidered alligators or polo players on your collared shirts.

Somehow I’d discovered Target and felt that if you looked with a squinty, objective eye, some of their stuff could qualify as legit. So I bought a pair of woven leather, cream colored, pointy-toed loafers from the Target shoe department. Y’all they were so cute. I wish I still had them.

There was only one problem. They were from Target. And this mattered because all the girls in class would flip their flats on and off their heels while their legs were crossed and then everyone knew what designer shoes you were wearing. Or not wearing.

So I did what any resourceful, image-obsessed girl would do. I raided my mother’s closet and found her gorgeous, burgundy Liz Claiborne pumps, the one splurge my darling mom had probably enjoyed in years. And which the dog promptly chewed up. {But that’s a story for another time.} Anyway, because the chewed-up shoes had become unwearable, I decided to harvest them for labels.

Lucky for me, Liz Claiborne had embroidered, adhesive labels in her fancy shoes at that time. Such luck! I simply peeled them from the carnage of the chewed-up pumps and gave them new life in my Target flats. Those rectangular designer labels fit perfectly over the no-name discount labels and no one was the wiser.

Until now, 27 years later, when I tell the whole world.

If thrift stores had been a big thing back then, I would have cleaned up. But they weren’t and so I learned how to shop clearance racks like a boss and pillage the family closets. Though I never felt like I looked the part, my family tells me I left for school every day looking put together and on trend. I’m quite sure they were biased but still, I will forever love my mom and dad for complimenting me all the time on my knack for making something cute out of nothing much.

I didn’t see it as a gift; I saw it as survival. But in retrospect, my parents were actually on to something. I wish I’d actually acknowledged my knack for hacks as the resourcefulness that it was.

Fashion Note #4: Practice pattern mixing until you can do it in your sleep.

I know it was hard for them to not be able to buy everything my teenage heart desired but they gave me so much more. They surprised me with the occasional mega-splurge, like a pair of Calvin Klein jeans folded up at the edge of my bed one morning. And my mom, whose Southern roots meant that she always wanted her girls to have a new Easter dress, prayed with me in the mall parking lot before we’d go in to shop. She would ask God to provide, even though our means were limited. And God always did.

Years later, I’ve been known to do the same with my daughter. I’d call that a legacy, even if it’s about something as superficial as the clothes we wear.

And that’s why I’ve never written about any of this here on the blog — because it seemed superficial.

Except that it’s not.

Every single person on the planet has to put on something every day — whether it’s a loin cloth or a designer gown. For most of us, it’s something in between. Thank goodness. Because I don’t know the first thing about accessorizing loin cloths.

But I do know a thing or two about mixing up your closet with creativity and resourcefulness because I’ve been doing it my whole life. I love combining new pieces, accessorizing, hunting through cast-offs and coming out with something amazing.

If I’d really been paying attention, I’d have realized long ago that this isn’t superficial at all. My real-life friends ask me for help and I love to do it. They’ve even prompted me to write about it on the blog or to go into business doing closet makeovers. I’ve always just brushed it off because:

a) This is fashion we’re talking about and I’m a “serious writer.”

b) I’m not a professional.

c) Outfits don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.

But when it’s something we all have to do every day? When it communicates so much about our personalities? When it paralyzes us from even trying because we’re not naturally good at this whole fashion thing? When it can easily costs lots of money that we don’t actually have?

Well, that sounds like it’s something that really matters and for a host of good reasons.

So I’ve started listening to what others say and taking to heart the clues from my past and my present — my friends, my sister, my husband, my parents’ affirmation all those years ago, the chatty girl with blue hair at the Deal Mart who looked me up and down on an everyday Thursday and asked me if I was a stylist, my daughter’s friends who say, Oh my gosh, Mrs. Vischer, I like, LOVE that outfit so. much. {Insert TBH and dramatic teenage voice emoji.}

Maybe my little world has been trying to tell me something all these years and I’ve been too busy with my important, meaningful, serious work. And also too embarrassed to reveal all my “secrets” because they are dumb and superficial and too thrifty for the average person.

Well, times…they are a changing.

Fashion Note #5: A Study in Contrasts. Juxtapose formal wear with “natural” elements like a plastic split-rail fence and fake grass platform.

Now before you worry that I’m about to become a fashion blogger, I’m not. I don’t even read fashion blogs. And besides, most of the real fashion out there isn’t that “real” to me. I’m a mom who looks cute approximately two days a week when I actually have to get out of my minivan and talk with other adults in public places.

Also, fashion isn’t my number one thing. I plan to keep writing the real about motherhood, faith, school choices, books, and the possibility of everyday redemption. That’s where my heart beats strong. Try as I might, I’ll never be a niche blogger. But you’ll always find the same theme here and it’s honest dish about real life — how the epic and the everyday frustrations, failures, and funnies are all tinged with hope, possibility, and redemption.

I believe that with all my heart because it’s the story of my life, the story that continues to unfold every day.

And I’m realizing that everyday redemption can even extend to our closets and how much fun would that be for all of you real women who show up here? Not to mention the fun I’ll have as the hostess.

I’ve got some super fun things in store for you.

Fashion Notes #6: When an accessory is taller than you, it’s time to choose something a bit more understated.

One last thing before I conclude this post that has somehow become a memoir.

I’m sweating here. I’ve put off writing this post for weeks. I’ve been waiting for the brave to show up and guess what? I’m still waiting. But if we all waited until we weren’t afraid to begin, then no one would ever get on stage or write that book or say “I do.” So many of the best endeavors begin when we’re still shaking in our boots. I’m learning that the shaking is actually a good indication of meaningful, authentic work.

A few weeks ago I wrote a post that I was terrified to publish. I almost didn’t. Turns out that more people read that post than any other post in the 31-day series. Experiences like that give me courage to lean into the fear and the unknown and say yes anyway — even over something as silly as an announcement about a new fashion niche on one’s blog.

I’ve got more to say in my next post when I reveal some of the inspiration behind this new endeavor. {And introduce you to a couple of my muses who have inspired me with their bravery, creativity, and permission.} And I’m going to tell you a bit more about what’s in it for you.

/////

Your turn. Because friends, I so need some feedback here. Where are you on this issue of your wardrobe? Do you feel clueless or stuck? Have you given up all hope? Could you use some inspiration and practical tips from a real person? Do you have a closet full of nothing to wear? Do you want to learn thriftier ways?

This shopgirl wants to meet you where you are.

Tell me everything.

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So You’re 40. And Having an Identity Crisis. Awesome.

January 15, 2014 by Marian 5 Comments

I’ve spent the last couple of posts wading through deep matters of the heart. Openly discussing the recurrent struggles of shame and perfectionism and failure and cluelessness in my life is no picnic.

It’s cathartic and needful. But it’s no party.

I’ve decided that January is kind of a bully like that. If ever there’s a month I’m prone to descend into the pit, it’s January. Perhaps that’s why the god of serotonin sends the Golden Globes in January.

Can awards shows be a means of grace? Probably not. I might be excommunicated from my church just for typing that. I’m not gonna lie though, couture gowns and cheesy interviews and funny people are therapeutic. Anybody?

Can this post just be about the Globes? Can I just be an entertainment blogger or lifestyle blogger? Food blogger?

I’d love to jump genres right now. I really would.

But alas, I’m a things-of-the-soul blogger. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t. Food and fashion and being funny sounds more appealing right now.

As I’ve been writing and thinking in recent weeks, as I’ve waded through messy introspection and prayed about what God has in this season for me and for my family, He has been kind to make some things clear. Not in a here’s the instant answer to your prayer kind of way but in a the answer to your prayer has been here all along and now I’m giving you eyes to see it kind of way.

When you’re teetering precariously on the edge of a pit, it’s easy to focus on your shortcomings. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed. It’s easy to waffle between striving harder and giving up altogether. This is where I’ve been.

I simply haven’t had the eyes to see or the clarity to comprehend much of the good that my life has yielded. January introspection has a way of narrowing my vision and only pointing to the good that’s been left unfulfilled.

Writing that out for others to read makes me want to run and hide. It reveals just how ridiculous and twisted and overdramatic I really am on the inside. Unfortunately it gets worse.

In the midst of all of this woe is me stuff {because all of that isn’t enough grossness on which to ruminate} I’ve been seeking and searching for what I’m supposed to do with my life.

Apparently I am twenty years old again.

Don’t misunderstand, I have plenty to do. In fact, I don’t even get to all of the stuff I’m “supposed” to do. I am constantly overwhelmed with all that there is to do and yet? I feel the need for “purpose.” Go figure.

As if a husband and a home and three kids and a dog and kids at two schools and church and living in real-life community have no purpose.

But compared to what some of my former seasons of life have looked like, this season sometimes feels small and insignificant, even though I know that’s not true. Still, on many days I have felt insignificant. I’ve oscillated between wanting to do more and wanting to stay hidden and safe. I still do. Maybe you do too.

In October I read the loveliest book called A Million Little Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live by Emily Freeman. I say it’s lovely because of its gentle voice and beautiful message. It’s not a battle cry to get out there and do what you were made to do. It’s more of a winsome invitation to live out your God-given design, whether it’s in the darkness of night as you rock your sick baby or whether it’s on a stage in front of hundreds of people. I’ve written about the book before and months later, I’m still rolling it around in my head.

These questions of purpose and design and calling have always had a way of haunting me.

And so I wonder and pray, What does it look like for me, right now, in this little corner of the world, to live like an “artist,” to carry out all of my roles and relationships in a way that’s honest and unique and open-handed and underpinned with grace?

I know that it first means doing battle with the voices of shame and failure and letting go of the idea that there is even a real “wagon of awesomeness” to begin with. It means filtering bad news truth through the greater lens of good news truth.

Because I’m a Christian, it also means that I have to know who I am in Christ and because of Christ. This is a daily reorientation. Daily. Usually many times a day. But assuming I’m standing in this Truth, then what?

What am I supposed to do with my life today? Tomorrow? In this season where I am no longer consumed with diapers and babies who don’t sleep and lesson plans and lectures and homeschooling?

God, what do you have for me?

It’s not that I’m on a mission to find the will of God, nor am I afraid of missing it. I know that God isn’t wringing his hands while pointing to all the clues and hoping that I don’t miss his direction or mess it up.

I believe He is sovereign. I believe all is grace. I believe nothing is wasted. I believe that our roles in each season of life help define our purposes.

I’ve simply felt floundery. {Dare you to tell me that’s not a real word.} I’ve sensed a lack of intentionality and conviction in the everyday. I’ve not wanted to rush into opportunities but have instead wanted to proceed slowly and thoughtfully.

But in this slow and thoughtful process, I’m doing battle with fear and insecurity and doubt.

There are some things I know, priorities that are obvious. I am a wife. I am a mother. I am a manager of my home. And so thankful that I can’t get fired for this one because y’all, I should so be fired. We should totally be under new management. I am a neighbor. And in all of these things I am called to love and sacrifice and offer what I have.

But that’s kind of the rub. What do I have?

It’s the weirdest thing, not having an annotated “job description” in black and white. I’m a fan of job descriptions.

Remember how I said earlier that God has opened my eyes to answers that were already there?

I received an e-mail from a dear friend.

I received another one from a stranger.

I received some unexpected messages from others I know but not all that well.

One after another over the course of the week, they came and with each one, I cried.

They all carried the same message: Thank you. Thank you for what you’ve shared with me. It’s made a difference in my life and I wanted you to know.

I told my husband that at another time in my life, this would have puffed me up a bit. But at this point? In this season? It brings me to my knees. I’ve cried a lot. I’ve marveled and thanked God because this one thing is crystal clear: God works in spite of me.

I’m a mess. I’m half-crazy on any given day.

If you only knew.

Yet even as I’ve lived and moved in my everyday life through my everyday mess and sometimes my epic mess, God has been living and moving with me and in me and through me.

Emily wrote a free companion guide to her book and on Saturday morning I read these words from the introduction of this guide, Seven Little Ways to Live Art. As I read it and re-read it, the answers to art and purpose and plans began to come together in my mind:

Learning to live like an artist means opening your eyes to where you live right now, to see who stands around you, and to uncover how you might offer what is most alive in you today into the life of someone else–for their benefit and for God’s glory.

Those kind words of gratitude I received from others, they revealed that I was living as an artist without fully knowing it.

In the conversations with those around me that I never considered noteworthy.

In the books I recommended to a hurting friend.

In the posts I labored over and doubted but published anyway.

These things came about without fanfare. They flowed out of the everyday me in the same way that the things you do flow out of the everyday you.

I wish I could just stop there but the truth is, that only answered part of the question for me.

What about the stuff that comes less naturally? What about the bad stuff that flows out of the everyday me? What about the relationships and circumstances that tend to showcase the worst in me instead of the best? What about when your gifts seem to be nowhere in sight and you just want to climb out the escape hatch and let someone else take over?

I have a tendency to compartmentalize who I am. It’s not intentional but it’s a pattern that’s been in the making for many years. I often save my best words or heartfelt encouragement or diplomatic responses for others but tend to dish up complaining and general slackness with my husband. It’s easy to be funny and crazy with my friends but way too serious with my kids.

Simply put, I tend to bring my best to those outside the walls of my own home and serve leftovers for those who mean the most to me. It pains me to write this but the life I live at home with my dearest ones is usually less. Less than artful. Less than the life I give to others. Less than I long for.

Now that’s a post in and of itself but let’s just admit that confession is a needful thing. It lays bare our weakness and inability and invites God to provide.

Like the scant offering of loaves and fishes that Jesus used to feed a multitude, this same Jesus says to me and to you:

Bring what you have. Just show up and let me supply your needs. I am sufficient even though you’re lacking. Your weakness is an opportunity for me to display my power and compassion. I am a God of change and healing and courage.

I long for a simpler approach toward living out my purposes. Not “simpler” in the way of easy because we’re definitely not promised easy. But simpler in the way of grace and openness and letting who I am seep into every compartment. Simpler in the way of bringing what I have and acknowledging what I don’t have and trusting God to work in me and through me.

So, back to Emily’s quote. What does that look like exactly? It looks different for all of us, but I’ve tried to break down what it looks like for me. You can break down what it looks like for you. And by the way, Emily’s companion guide takes you through this process over the course of seven days. I’ve just started my seven days but here’s how I’m beginning to flesh out that introductory quote.

…..

Opening my eyes to where I live right now.

Right now I am a tired mom living with kids who need me. I’m a wife living with a husband who needs me. I’m a reluctant owner living with a dog who sometimes pees inside when it’s raining and therefore needs me in ways that are wholly unpleasant. I’m a homemaker living in a house where meals are made and clothes are folded and counters are wiped.

I live in my neighborhood. I move in and out of places in my specific community. I worship and have fellowship at my church. I’m at my kids’ schools. I type out thoughts at my writing desk.

These are the places where I live and they help define my purposes, my “art.”

Seeing who stands around me.

My kids. My husband. My neighbor. My friend next to me on the bleachers. My extended family. My child’s teacher. Depending on the day, it could be anyone.

These are the people who stand around me and they help define my purposes, my “art.”

Living who I am in a way that means something to them.

Writing heart-felt words for readers who show up to receive them.

Sharing books and stories with my own kids.

Singing a crazy, made-up song as I brush his teeth and knowing that I helped turn his frown into laughter that sprayed the sink with tiny toothpaste bubbles.

Being honest with a friend who knows me, telling her that I’m struggling and asking her to please pray.

Remembering that the girl my husband fell in love with 20 years ago was prone to frequent outbursts of hilarity and being mindful to bring that back a little more.

Knowing that I have to watch TV in order to fold laundry so that my most loathsome task becomes an excuse to binge-watch Parenthood and still yields clean clothes for the family.

French-braiding her hair late at night even though I’m tired. Because having pretty hair the next day means something to her and I can offer this.

Helping my neighbor hang pictures on the wall.

…..

Can it be that simple?

Can a job description be this open?

Can I simply translate who I already am into the everyday I already live and let the mixture of the two paint my life’s canvas?

It hit me over the weekend: I have let perfectionism and impressiveness and my own opinions sabotage my purposes, my “art.”

Nothing is small to God. And it may not be small to others either. What we offer is only small in our estimation of things.

A few days ago I erased “Merry Christmas” from our chalkboard and wrote this instead:

I wrote it with the kids in mind. But perhaps it’s more of the daily reminder their mom needs.

Our big expectations and big selves have a may of making that which is sacred feel insignificant. But God says whatever we do is sacred and significant. As we offer ourselves into the world around us each and every day, we offer ourselves to Him too.

So here it is, the prescription for my “identity crisis.” {And maybe yours too?}

Show up as you are.

Bring what you have and also what you lack.

Embrace what comes: the dreamed-for project and the disappointing results, the stuffed-up kid and the tear-stained neighbor.

Give God your epic and your everyday.

Step into your real life and live your story.

Related Books

A Million Little Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live by Emily P. Freeman

Seven Little Ways to Live Art {a free downloadable companion guide} by Emily P. Freeman

The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and “Women’s Work” by Kathleen Norris

Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work by Timothy Keller

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Being Cool About School, a series: How Can We All Care About Our Public Schools? {And Why Should We?}

September 11, 2013 by Marian 7 Comments

During the first week of my kids’ abrupt transition from homeschool to public school, I was back and forth to the front office a good bit handling paperwork and ironing out details. It was the last week before Christmas break, a delightful week of parties and cupcakes and general goodwill.

On one of those days, the staff person who runs the front office apologized for being in a hurry. She and one of her helpers had to scurry out to homes and deliver Christmas gifts to kids in our community. They were in a hurry because the deliveries needed to be made before the children got home from school. The school’s “Santa” is rather anonymous and inconspicuous. What mattered was that these kids in need received their gifts. Kids who may not have received gifts if not for the school. Kids who were writing and reading and eating cupcakes alongside my own kids.

I stood there at the front desk a bit baffled. The school took gifts to its own disadvantaged children?

On that December day, I received an ironic invitation: to be part of a needy and generous community.

Because no matter how you educate your own kids, the schools in your town are a significant part of your community. Though we all play various roles and feel called to serve our community and its children in different ways, I’m afraid that our heads are in the sand if we think our public schools aren’t relevant to us simply because we choose to homeschool or private school our own children.

I’m a rather strange bird who, despite dreaming of a classical private school utopia for my own children and then homeschooling, has always had an abiding appreciation for public schools. Maybe it’s because I come from a long line of teachers. All four of my grandparents taught in the public schools, as did my mom. My husband and I are both products of public school, K-12.

For better and for worse, much has changed about our schools in recent years. Strong opinions abound. The critics’ voices on all extremes of the political and religious spectrums scream for our attention and our allegiance. I sometimes worry that the actual children end up drowning in a sea of rhetoric and red tape. I mean, they are the reason education exists, are they not?

But despite the inefficiencies and weaknesses of public education, despite the polarization and politics, I still thank God for our nation’s schools. I thank Him for those who are called to teach the gifted children, the struggling learners, the middling masses, and the precious ones with special needs.

I thank him for those who help teach my own children.

Many say that our public school system is broken. If I only read the headlines or listened to those motivated by the politics and platforms of fear, I’d probably agree. But I don’t say that it’s broken. I say that it’s bent. Badly bent in some places with failing schools that often mirror failing communities, but strong and true in other places with inspired learners and relatively stable locales.

There are a million variables and therefore just as many different outcomes regarding our kids’ security and successes in public schools. Comparing one public school to another school just thirty minutes down the road can be like comparing a 2014 Lexus to a 1970s station wagon with fake wood paneling peeling off the sides. They’re both automobiles. They’re each designed for the same purpose. The Lexus will definitely get you where you need to go. The peeling station wagon is supposed to get you there, in theory, but the odds are not so much in your favor.

But we shouldn’t let an institution’s scattered weaknesses and inequalities define it as a whole and cover up the beauty. We shouldn’t allow fear or frustration or firmly-rooted ideologies to tell us to “throw the baby out with the bathwater.” We need to be active investigators and participants in our own communities. When we ignore our schools because they’re seemingly irrelevant to us or bent beyond repair, we’ve turned our backs on one of the cornerstones of society.

Despite its imperfections and frustrations, I believe public schools are God’s common grace to us.

As Christians, we’re called to live in this world and to care about it. We’re not all going to be education activists or teachers. We’re not all going to even send our kids to public school. But we are called to care, to vote, to sometimes work to change that which is not fruitful or beneficial or true.

My own church recently provided opportunities to help out at our local elementary school during the first weeks of school. People could volunteer to help kindergarteners find their way to their classrooms or work with Good News Club. At other times it’s assembled work teams to help spruce up the school grounds. I hope these small kindnesses communicate a big message: We care about you, our local school. We’re here for you. Let us know how we can serve you and the children in our community.

Some of you may be tempted to stop reading at this point. Come on Scooper, are you trying to guilt us into volunteering at schools our kids don’t even attend?

Not at all. Volunteerism isn’t even the point of this post. It’s just that I’ve had to think and re-think and pray and cry and un-learn and re-learn so much about this whole issue of school during the last couple of years. I’ve been forced in new ways to consider how my faith informs the instruction of my own kids but how it also informs my attitude and approach toward schools in our community.

Those opportunities I listed above? I didn’t help out with any of them. I’m a mom with three kids and was too busy getting them ready for and settled into a new school year. I have some other endeavors of which I’m a part and we can’t do it all. Nor should we even try. There are seasons when we can help and seasons when we cannot. There are opportunities for which our heart leaps and says Yes, I know I’m called to do this and there are opportunities we allow to pass.

But there is never a season in which we shouldn’t care.

The children in our communities matter to God and therefore they matter to us. They are the “least of these,” the “needy,” the “vulnerable.” Sometimes they are the literal “orphans” and the “oppressed” that Scripture clearly and frequently calls us to care for.

When Jesus came to earth and did ministry here, he did it incarnationally. Meaning, he “moved in” with the needy, the scandalized, the outcast, and the vulnerable. He sat the children on his lap, despite protests from the grown-ups.

He entered into the lives and institutions of communities…and they were changed. For those who are in Christ, He is not only our model; He is our motivation. In Him we live and move and have our being. We can carry grace into the struggling lives and stagnant places of this world because He’s with us.

You may be wondering, So what does this have to do with public school, especially if my kids don’t even go there?

That’s a good question, one I’ve asked myself a time or ten. Part of the answer lies in this story:

About seven years ago, my church had a Sunday School class for women. Over the course of the semester, various ladies in the church shared their stories. It was an incredible time, one of the most hopeful and encouraging experiences I’ve ever been part of. Women shared about marriages that shouldn’t have made it but somehow, because of Jesus, are now whole. They shared about overcoming addiction and shame and wretched backgrounds. They shared about second chances and healing. Week after week, one redemption story after another.

One week my friend Carol {not her real name} shared. Truthfully, she was more of an acquaintance, a kind, thoughtful, and intelligent woman I primarily knew because she taught at my kids’ preschool. I couldn’t have imagined Carol’s story. We never do, really. We look at people in their put-together Sunday demeanor and simply assume that they have always lived somewhat “together” lives.

But Carol hadn’t. She told a story that revealed a childhood of unspeakable victimization. I marveled that she had been put back together at all after the hell she had lived through. And yet here she was, a wife, a mother, a preschool teacher, a devoted friend to many. She was living, breathing hope and redemption to us.

I have a reason for sharing her story. Do you know how God held out a lifeline of hope and love to Carol when she was a child and adolescent? By sending Christian friends and teachers her way throughout her public school experience. She told us that public school was her only safe and secure place.

Carol reminded us that we have a purpose in public schools. She told us that Christian kids and their families saved her and that we never know who our own children, through our influence and encouragement, may be able to love and serve.

Though she felt passionately about public education, Carol didn’t have ill will toward those who chose to educate their kids elsewhere. She was a model of grace. I talked with her often after we were homeschooling; she was nothing but kind and supportive. But she knew from the deepest well of experience that Christians have the powerful privilege and opportunity to hold out the hope and love of Christ to so many public school children who, every day, haul in abuse and baggage and unspeakable pain along with their pencils and notebooks and juice boxes.

A sidenote: Carol also escaped her troubled childhood through books. In fact, she’s the one who inspired me to read, read, read to my own children. Shortly after she shared, I began reading Charlotte’s Web to my 5-year-old daughter and I’ve been reading to my kids ever since. Seven years later, I’ve just begun the same book with my 5-year-old son. We all have Carol to thank for the many books we’ve enjoyed together over the years.

Some of you reading this will know that we lost Carol to cancer not so long ago. I don’t know why certain people seem to endure an inordinate amount of unjust suffering in this life. My consolation is that she is fully whole and safe now, radiant and with Jesus. She influenced so many people throughout her life, myself included. Her plea, to shine a light for struggling kids, continues to echo in my thoughts.

I hear some of you now. Scooper, that is an amazing story, one that tugs on heartstrings and inspires. But you sound as if we all need to put our kids in public school in order save the world.

I’m not saying that. There are sound arguments to be made for all the ways in which we can educate our children. But for those of us who do have children in public school, we need to be aware of the opportunities before us. I daresay, we have to be aware. For those who don’t have children there, I’ll get to you in a minute.

In his book, Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just, Tim Keller says this:

In general, to “do justice” means to live in a way that generates a strong community where human beings can flourish. Specifically, however, to “do justice” means to go to places where the fabric of shalom has broken down…

How can we do that? The only way to reweave and strengthen the fabric is by weaving yourself into it. Human beings are like those threads thrown together onto a table. If we keep our money, time, and power to ourselves, for ourselves, instead of sending them out into our neighbors’ lives, then we may be literally on top of one another, but we are not interwoven socially, relationally, financially, or emotionally.

Friends, we must “reweave shalom.” Shalom literally means complete reconciliation, wholeness, and peace. Shalom impacts and reflects all aspects of society, including its institutions. It’s become one of my favorite words because it’s what we truly, intrinsically long for in our homes, in our relationships, in our communities, and on our earth.

Though perfect shalom will never be fulfilled on this fallen, sin-scarred globe, we’ve been given an invitation to participate nonetheless. We can practice shalom today, in our communities and in our communities’ schools, where the teachers and leaders and parents of tomorrow are being cared for and trained and befriended by your children.

Bringing shalom to the places that need it usually costs us something. Carrying burdens and loving sacrificially always does. But for those who are in Christ, our motivation is not duty or even charity; it’s love. It’s knowing that because of our own great need, Christ put on human flesh and lived among us and died for us. We are made new. We can live free. We know the beauty of hope. We are wild about grace.

We give because we know how much we’ve been given.

Living intentionally in our public schools as we teach, volunteer, and instruct our own children {as best we can} to live the second greatest commandment–love your neighbor as yourself–is no small thing. My own family isn’t a great living example of this. I don’t write this because we are. I write this because I want to hold out shalom. I want to be mindful of opportunities to serve and befriend and give to those in our path.

I have a feeling you do too.

This actually has very little to do with volunteering or signing up for the PTO or raising the most money in the fall fundraiser. Though it can be that. It has everything to do with being aware of specific opportunities that come into your family’s sphere of influence.

For those of you who don’t send your children to public schools or whose children have finished their many years of school, what is my challenge?

I simply ask you to care. Put your community’s schools on your radar. Walk in its 5K races, for example, and show your support in a way that works for you…if you can. Do you know men and women who teach there? Encourage them. Pray for them. Thank them for the work they do to teach nearly all of the children in your community.

The work they do is tough. Many of the kids in their classrooms are not easy to teach. They are up against family situations and bureaucracy and entitled parents. I’ll be honest, I couldn’t do it. But I am thankful beyond measure for those who do. We should all be thankful.

Despite the failings we’re quick to highlight about our public schools, I don’t think any of us would want to deal with the brutal realities of a largely uneducated populace.

And for those of us who are Christians, imagine the bleak realities of our nation’s schools without any believing teachers, administrators, staff, families, and children. And really, it’s not just a Christian thing. We’re called to act justly and to love mercy. Whatever form mercy takes, whether it’s Oprah or Compassion International or after-school volunteers, I’m grateful. Imagine if everyone simply gave up?

My years of homeschooling were rather all-consuming. There wasn’t much I could do, tangibly, to support our local schools or be involved in my community. And that is just fine. Raising up little ones is a full-time endeavor. Some days we did well just to get everyone fed and in underpants. This is sacred, noble work, by the way. Who knows how today’s “mundane” tasks of motherhood may impact the world twenty years from now?

But I do regret that my overall attitude was rather apathetic during that time. I regret that I didn’t think and pray for those I know who teach and work in our public schools. I regret that I didn’t make more of an effort to engage, even a little bit, in discussions regarding our schools.

Simply put, I wish I had cared more, even if there was little I could actually do at the time.

Next week concludes the series and I’ll spend some time talking about ways we can come together. But for now let me leave you with this:

No matter how we school, we all live in a community together. Some folks in our community do life and education very similarly to us. And some don’t. But like it or not, we all play a part. When we’re apathetic toward others in our community, we play a part. And when we’re attentive toward others in our community, we also play a part.

The question is, which part do you want to play?

Shalom is there. She’s in the park. On the football field. At the 5K. In the grocery story. At the local community care office. In your kids’ school.

She holds out opportunities tailor-made for each of us. A love-starved kid in your child’s class. A tired and discouraged teacher who lives next door. A cause or a club that needs the $10 or $100 you can spare.

Will you notice? Will you say yes? Will you hold out your portion of hope and love and wholeness to the community where you live? Will you be an instrument of peace, goodwill, partnership, and encouragement?

I don’t have a great track record. I haven’t noticed like I’ve really wanted to. But I’d like to change that. Maybe you do too.

Let’s notice together.

……………………

This is the seventh post in a series:

Being Cool About School:

Finding Grace & Freedom for Ourselves & Others in Our Educational Choices

{Whether We Teach Our Kids at Home,

in School, or on the Moon}

You can read the earlier posts in the series here.

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{Fourteen Months Later} Rest, Giving Up, and Receiving My Own Life

March 8, 2013 by Marian 6 Comments

Fourteen months ago I submitted to a sabbatical of sorts, an unknown number of months devoted to the “task” of resting, healing, and receiving Grace. I called it “The Year of Simplicity.”

We put our kids in public school after nearly five years of homeschooling. I resolved to say No more than Yes. My husband has been good and kind about enforcing margin and boundaries. He shows me lots of grace for my lack of accomplishment.

In fact, I seem to be the only one who’s really concerned with the “lack.”

Many months later, it still feels indulgent to write about it. And more often than not, it still feels indulgent to live it. Some days I feel like I don’t need the rest anymore so I plow ahead, taking full advantage of that day’s energy and feeling like a normal person again and wanting to pat myself on the back for productivity on a “good day.”

After all that I’ve learned, my default is still to equate personal worth with personal output. Where is the grace in that? I’ve said it before: Exhaustion is a bully.

Usually a day or two or three after one of those productive days, I crash. Overpowered by unexplainable exhaustion and its accompanying discouragement, I get the bare minimum done and wonder how someone can be so consistently inconsistent.

A few weeks ago I saw my doctor. My newest charts show that I’m getting better, but I still have a long way to go before I’m “there.” She encouraged me to be patient, to take heart that there is measurable improvement. And I feel it, I do. It’s just hard to wait.

I realize that I write in vague terms here on the blog. That’s just the way it has to be. We all have our stories and though mine could certainly be far worse and tragic, it’s safe to say that it’s been a rough two years. In all honesty, it’s been a rough seven years, with some acute crises along the way that threatened to undo me altogether.

Details aside, here’s what I know: Cumulative emotional stress will eventually have its say. You can only keep truckin’ for so long before you run out of gas and find yourself broken down on the side of the road. For me, that broken-down day came in December of 2011. Life since then has felt like one extended pit-stop. {Stop the world. I just used a Nascar metaphor.}

Some people receive grace and are less prone to guilt than others. I envy them. Sometimes I have to bury my head in the sand in order to avoid the good messages that my own brain twists into condemning lies. Look what she’s doing with her life; she’s not making any excuses.

And then guilt spirals into shame and shame sucks out the precious little anything I had left.

We all do life differently and even though we’re called, as Christians, to shine light into the dark and downtrodden places of our world, there are seasons in which our own light is burning so dimly, we simply have to retreat, if only for a time.

I remind myself that God doesn’t need us to accomplish his good in the world; He’s all-sufficient. But He invites us into sacred, beautiful, messy kingdom work for our good and for his glory. For some crazy reason, He chooses to use us.

On my good days, I’m inspired when I see what this looks like in the lives of others even if it looks nothing like that in my own life. But on my loser days, I’m more guilt-ridden than inspired. I tell God that if He’d just help me out a little and fix what I want Him to fix, I could do so much good in the world.

Instead, He shows me that my struggles and ongoing redemption are exactly the good He’s ordained for me and for my family, for now, in our own little corner of the universe.

After seventeen plus years of marriage, I’m learning {so slowly} what it looks like to love my husband and to receive his love for me. We are very much in the trenches of rebuilding and let me tell you, it’s work. Emotionally-draining, spiritually-taxing work. Day after day of that will tire you out physically as well. For so long, I didn’t make the emotional / physical connection. {Please, just take my word for it. If you’re in a really emotionally-draining season, prepare to be physically tired and arrange your life accordingly.}

After twelve years of motherhood, I’m realizing {also very slowly} what it looks like to mother each child with grace and love and freedom. And that is also work.

My days are simpler than they’ve been in the past but they’re richer in a way too. Sure there’s the laundry, the grocery-shopping, the taxi-ing. But so very organically and sweetly, God is allowing my quiet life to intersect with the lives of other broken and struggling women. In living rooms and coffee shops, via e-mails and blog posts, Grace is doing its upside-down, inside-out, backwards thing. Beauty out of ashes. Community out of brokenness. Encouragement out of suffering. Healing out of scars. Fruitfulness out of rest.

It’s just…happening. I’ve done nothing to orchestrate it. I only say Yes and receive it.

I recently scribbled this in my notes of The Ragamuffin Gospel:

Is the Gospel of Grace the difference between receiving versus doing? Is the Christian life more passive than active? Responding to His lead instead of driving along as one would in an old carriage, beating life with the whip of law and control and expectation rather than knowing we are uniquely led by a loving God?

I’m no theologian but I’m discovering that great fruitfulness and freedom can be born out of giving up. And if anyone has professionalized giving up, surely it is me.

On days when I wish I could measure my productivity and have a bit of my old self back, it’s steadying to survey the larger picture, to see that God is working and moving even when I feel like I barely am.

You can’t rush rest. You can’t Red Bull your way into a functional person. You can’t rebuild in a month or even fourteen of them what slowly decayed and crumbled over many years. You can’t live someone else’s life or adopt their M.O.

You can only receive yours.