Safe Sects: Love the EVERYONE

*I shared this on Facebook originally but wanted to put it here where it won't get lost or buried. And I added a bit to it.*

I haven't said anything about some of the hot-button issues lately (Caitlyn, McKinney). I have been watching and reading and pulling my hair out--cringing, and feeling sick at *some* of the things that people who look like me and label themselves like I do (white, heterosexual married, christ-follower) have been saying about and to their fellow human beings.

I have been wondering if/how to even inject my voice into this maelstrom OF SHOUTING and "them versus us." But it's not really my jam to outsmart or argue (I lack the intelligence and the patience of Jesse) or to even be "on a side."

So here's the best I can come up with:

I feel like my job, my calling, and my heart as a Jesus-follower is to be a safe person for YOU. If you're a transgender decathlete, a white cop, a black teenager, a right-wing conservative, a Buddhist, a nerd, Sammy Sosa, a vegan, my BFF, or WHATEVER. Please hear:

I want everyone who crosses my path to always feel safe with me. Your story, your pain, your "stuff," who you are---> I'm not interested in changing, minimizing, calling out or arguing against any of it. 

My #1 only "strategy" for how I--a clueless dummy--can best show you my Jesus, is for you to feel safe and heard--never rejected or judged. I'm probably going to mess it up, but I aspire to be that first and foremost. I think that being a safe haven for my neighbors speaks so much louder and is much more effective than trying to convince them of my ways or their shortcomings ever could be.

I have been zapped, whammied, blasted, and stomped by people wielding Jesus as a shame weapon and it SUCKS. If that has been your experience, I want to apologize and tell you that I don't think that is an accurate picture of Him in the slightest. 

I wasn't able to put any kind of articulate, biblical and personal thoughts together about these things in the past few weeks (mostly I was just all "OHHHH THE ANGST OF MEEEEE") until my friend shared a blog post originally written in 2013. It helped put words to my response to the hoopla and the hate. It was my, "YES! THIS IS IT!" moment.

The writer, Beth Woolsey, speaks my heart and my Jesus-reasoning on this topic better than anything I have read so far and it's a message I hope comes across from me PLEASE read it if you A: like to point out sin in others (me!) or B: have ever had your stuff called out by a Christian whose advice you weren't asking for (me too!) or C: are human (also me): 3 Reasons I Quit Loving the Sinner and Hating the Sin.  

When it's no longer my agenda to identify your sins (and put them in your "THINGS I MUST HATE ABOUT YOU" file), I have a lot more time and energy to spend actually hearing and understanding you. I have heard so many Christians say, "I was so sure that X group of people were wrong/awful, until I found out my son/brother/friend was one." The relationship can often be more powerful than issue--but only if I don't use the issue as relational TNT to obliterate any chance of a relationship and Christlike love ever developing. 

Safety first. 

Safety Officer.

love is an open door (only one though)

It started with a brutal insult from me to Jesse. 

We were in the car and I was singing screeching out my favorite of the Frozen soundtrack songs, "Love is an Open Door," the duet between Anna and Prince Hans (doy). 

 

Jinx. Jinx again!

Jesse, rather understandably (to a rational person, at least) jumped in on the boy part. I immediately and violently shushed him and barked, "No, stop! I want to sing it with him. I like his voice better."

And almost immediately after it was out of my mouth, I was like

 

OHHHHHHHHHHHHH FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDGE

See, I wanted to live out a little 2-minute fantasy wherein I play an ignored, shut-in, Nordic princess falling in love with a cartoon ginger prince (who, if you've seen the film....you know...) at my first ever ball. And in pursuing this little mental escape, I had just majorly taken a chunk out of the heart of my real life, forever husband AND managed to insult his singing voice in the process (he is a professional worship leader, soooo...extra wounding points landed there). 

It got me thinking about how often I do this. How often I innocently--for just a moment--wish my love story was something different, or had something more than what it actually does. It could be anything from "I wish I had met my husband in a really crazy, serendipitous way like Anna and Hans," to "my life would be so much more exciting if I was just Khaleesi Drogo."

 

Duh

Of course, we do this all the time. A huge part of the fun of books and TV and movies and putting yourself in the characters' place and imagining how you would walk through their story. There’s probably nothing wrong with that.

But I noticed in that one moment when I snapped at Jesse to butt out and leave me and Hans to our little interlude, in chasing that little escape, it had become wrong. I was actually resenting Jesse a little bit for being not that. "You aren't able to fulfill this little side-dream of mine, so just please shut up and let me pursue it elsewhere for a second, thank you."

I thought, "Isn't that just like a stereotypical American living in 2014?" (Maybe that's an unfair generalization, and I should just say, "isn't that just like me?"). In my actual everyday reality I have a husband who is faithful, attentive, hilarious, kind, hardworking (at home maybe even more than at work!), utterly committed to me, and also damn freakin' hot. I feel like 99.9% of women everywhere who have ever wanted a husband would be pretty happy to end up with a guy they could describe that way. And yet here I am trying to mentally cherry-pick for some fictional more, and being pretty lazily ungrateful for my real man in the process.

It made me see how dangerous it can be to look outside of your own love story for something that might be missing, for something more. 

Okay, sure, if it's 3 dragon eggs you're looking for, you're probably going to be alright. But what if what you're looking for is attentiveness because your husband never seems to have much time anymore for just pouring into you, but your neighbor or some guy at work hangs on your every word?

I think if that was me, I would be tempted to start to somehow convince myself that I could have both. My husband.....aaaaand maybe just the good feelings the attention from the other guy brought me too. And that just gets into a bucket full of yikes.

So after my horrible moment of insulting Jesse I decided to make a commitment to our love story. To stop daydreaming on "what it would be like if..." and spend time in and on our story. Our. One. Story. 

It might not be worth selling the movie rights, it might not have a single talking snowman or Targaryen in sight, and it--gasp--probably won't even make me "feel happy" a lot of the time, but it's the one that is real and it's the only one whose lead male character has actually vowed to give a crap about how that story turns out.

Maybe your prince or your love story isn't how you would have described him/it when you wrote the dream script of your life. Maybe you say, "yeah, easy for you to say, keight, since you have the guy of your dreams already. But what if I’m stuck in my story with someone i don’t even like anymore?" first of all, that has been me...LOTS of times. second of all, unless we are talking abuse or infidelity (and sometimes even then...y'all know I believe the restoring power of Jesus is seriously bananas and can do anything), I just don't see where it's ever going to be more profitable to pour yourself--your effort, attention, grace, everything--anywhere but back into your current marriage.

I know that this is a really simplistic view, and that it's far uglier, far more complex, and can feel far more hopeless than I’ve described. I just felt like, for a second, I got a really good glimpse of one of the ways satan can start to tempt my mind away from my own magical (that's not mushy baloney! 2 trying to become 1 is magic...straight up, playa) love story, and it was such a powerful moment of exposure to me, and so convicted me that I felt compelled to share.

It's hard. But I think it's always worth it. And that, my friends, is what she said.

We reclaimed that song, by the way. FOR US. It's officially a Keight & Jesse love song. So as you might expect, that track now plays a lot more like this in our car (except we don't call ourselves good-looking on YouTube).

third time 'round

hey, third pregnancy much?

11 weeks here. i feel like the morning sickness (evening death cloud) is just about over. it still sneaks up and has a little fit every now and then but it isnt the ever-present companion that makes everything in life fairly miserable that it was a few weeks ago.

the sickness stopped at 10 weeks with judah and at 14 with layla. i know that doesnt *really* mean anything according to doctors, but i do sort of believe the myth about girls causing more sickness than boys. i'm thinking boy. i dunno, i just feel like layla is my one and only little woman. i always pictured myself with lots/all boys, so having another one of those feels right. 

we considered for a brief moment NOT finding out what the gender was. then we got some self-awareness (hello, i am a control freak know it all...if theres info, i MUST know it!) and realized that would never work. i know its such a unique experience to hear ITS A BOY/GIRL! right at the apex of birth drama, and since we already have one of each the having clothes for either thing isnt an issue. despite that, we're just not the kind who can wait. for us, the birth will be its own huge amazing perfect day of getting to know this baby, so why not add another really exciting one where we get to know a leeeetle bit about him/her at 4/5 month pregnant to break up the wait a bit?

i can almost SWEAR i felt this baby move at 10 weeks. i know that is ridiculous to all experts, and even rationally thinking--a prune-sized baby being felt through a uterus? but i know what i felt! i remember exactly weird inner burble that is a tiny baby moving! yeah, yeah, you say, it's just gas. yall, come on now. if ANY mama intimately knows what gas feels like, it's this one, and this WASNT. this was a much more adorable BLORP than any gas bubble could ever hope to be.

i swear i gained ten pounds the moment i peed on that test. which is a bummer. looking 22 weeks pregnant at 11 isnt the funnest. but since the fat was CAUSED (at least in my head) by the pregnancy, i'm treating it as such and even if my gut isnt actually baby yet, you best believe i am stroking and patting it in public like it is. i figure there's a lime-size babe in there, plus enlarged uterus, a placenta and miscellaneous other swag, so they're pushing everything thats usually down there UP, which makes the fat have to go OUT. it's a baby chain reaction, therefore, yes i will walk around cradling my stomach fat like it's a treasured member of my family.

other fun things about a third pregnancy: commentary from the older kids! oh man. turns out they HAVE known the word "fat" all along, but have just never used it. until they decided to let it loose on me. and then there's layla asking EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. if its time for the baby to come out. if every one of her inquiries added an ounce to baby, we could have this kid up to birthweight in a week. 

both kids are sweet and ask to talk to the baby lots.  layla says, "when you come out i'm gonna dress you up like a puppy, and youll drink mommy's boobies." judah tend to say, "hey baby, are you sleeping?" cutting edge dialogue.

when we went for the ultrasound to see/hear the baby for the first time ever (aka to confirm ONLY ONE BABY), we had to bring the kids because of schedule and because of fun. it was another of my favorites: internal ultrasound(!) where i had to go bare from the waist down and judah managed to go "ew ew" in the nanosecond that i was undressed before getting under the sheet. freaking punk isnt the best for the old self esteem.

this isnt necessarily related to pregnancy, but in the same vein as above. the other night i was telling the kids we needed to take a bath. judah said, "are you going to get in with us?" because i sometimes do. i said, "no not tonight." and judah replied, "okay good. because i dont like your hairy bottom." and i almost died. i mooned him real quick and said, "excuse me my bottom is smoother than yours, are you thinking of your daddy?" and judah said, "no, on the other side. you know, your fur." resume death by mortification (and maybe a return trip here).

so yeah, i'm only taking baths with layla now. 

speaking of that girl: she was waaaaaaay to interested and touchy of the fuzzy little mits that covered the stirrups of the ultrasound table.  i tried to tell her that as a girl, she should inherently HATE these things.

that lil' number she's wearing is styled by daddy. the top is a 12-18 month sweater dress. the tights, per usual, have a gaping crotch rip, and the perfectly coordinating neon orange and gold sparkle flats make her feet smell so bad that i actually threw up when trapped in the car with them one time.

as for the ultrasound itself: word cannot express how nervous i was of having twins. i should have been weeping over the heartbeat or swooning at the first glimpse of my unborn child, but instead i was just like, "OKAY i have eyes on one bogey, are we all clear everywhere else? can i get a confirmation of just one single bogey!?!?!"

twins run in my family. though it's the only way, i will specify fraternal twins (identical twins do not run in your family, btw...its a totally chance occurrence and isnt genetic. so any running in the family means fraternal. pretty sure about that). the women in my family have a tendency to spit out two eggs in one month rather than just one and i was so so so scared that would be me. luckily, it seems as though my cousin took one for the this generation's team and will end up the only twin-mom. thanks, linds! better a hippie like you than an insane type-A like me.

once the technician assured me there was just one, it finally hit me that we were doing this thing again. this stupid, insane, miraculous, beautiful thing of growing a baby--OUR baby--and that it was already well underway inside of me. yeah, it was intense all over again. 

and then with no warning the heartbeat starts thumping through the speakers, just declaring: OH HEY IM ALIVE IN HERE! AND I'M YOURS! and it was love. 

i felt it a bit with layla, that weird quasi guilt that comes knowing you dont (and you'll never) pay as much attention to this baby, to this pregnancy as you did to your first because there's already a human or two on the outside for you to love and manage the needs and hissyfits of. it's not particularly unfair i guess (eldest child speaking!), because it's not like it could really be any other way, but this baby and the pregnancy are almost so easy to forget about (minus all the demonstrative public gut stroking) with all the blonde chaos raining down on us from all directions out here in among the air-breathing beings.

so even in that tiny, stirruped room with my oldest two crawling all over jesse and making crazy noises and being all sorts of distracting: one even brandishing a day old pizza crust; it was pretty to cool to see the attention and the awe that this little life commanded. everything just zeroed in on that black and white fuzzy picture and that bold PARRUMP of a heartbeat. 

it was a really cool reminder and picture of how cool it is to be created. to have had someone plan your tiny beginnings, jolt your heart to its first beat, to form your little arm and leg buds from way back before the foundations of the earth were set. i dont care if this is my 33rd baby, that always commands and attention and puts the praise right into my heart. i dont think i will be too distracted to love and be thoroughly knocked over with awe at this my third child. 

-10----->+935

jesse wrote this song and blogged about it 10 days before our layla took her first breath. i just stumbled back over the post today, 935 days after her birth,  and was brought to tears by how much she has lived up to and exceeded our wildest hopes for our little girl and what she would do to our hearts.

(seriously, if you havent listened to it...you need to)

we had never seen her, never touched her (those lucky OB's had), never heard her make a noise. all of the love and hope that went into this song and what we felt for her was an expectant one,a forward-looking one. 

if you've ever been pregnant, you know how ENDLESS that time is after 37 weeks, when the baby is totally big and ready enough to come on out. i read the posts i wrote from early november, 2010 and i have to laugh sympathetically at that poor, bloated, beached seacow of a me who was just about to lose her mind with being huge and pregnant and wildly missing a little girl whose face she had never seen. 

 as frantic as she was to get that hummus out, so were we to get HER out

sitting here at 935 days ex-utero and knowing this child backward and frontward, i am just in awe of how she fulfilled our dreams of what adding her to the family would look like, and then blasted straight through them and into a whole other dimension of joy and wonder.

beyond hoping for...this little creature.

and what a miracle that this exact experience happens and has happened billions of times over...it's not just for us! except it kind of is, too. the most intimate and yet universal thing on earth: life!

everything about pregnancy is magical. looking back at the pure and expectant love that we had before meeting layla from the standpoint of today, where she has just always been here and been adored, is really special in its own way.

keep blowing us away, tiny one.

we loved this one.

but this one makes our jaws drop

...she was in there all along. INSANE!!!

on vulnerability

.

it's amazing to see how all-in kids are. how wholeheartedly they live. if we discipline layla, she immediately says, "you huht mah feelins!" its precious and humbling to know we have that power and to see her hand it over to us so readily.

but oh how quickly they learn. how quickly this effed up world teaches us to harden our hearts. judah, at almost 4, has already learned to put on armor and not show "weakness." if we spank him (because, yes, we spank) he has started to go, "that didnt hurt me," even if i can see that his little lip is trembling from the guilt and conflict.

i can remember learning the elementary school lessons of never let them see you cry, and just pretend like it doesnt bother you. granted, if someone calls you a doo-doo face, this is a pretty expedient way of dealing with the dummy booger head. i dont fault the teachers and parents who taught me these things at all and i know that those lessons will probably be part of our parenting in some form too--just to get our kids through those magical doo-doo face years.

and it makes sense. this world is not a safe place for a tender, innocent heart. but i wonder if this is one of those things-that-dont-make-sense that jesus wants to call our hearts to. 

but as i have grown and matured, i have regretted this lifelong practice--which has now become an instinct--of putting on emotional armor. it took several years of back-and-heart-breaking work in my marriage to realize that i wasnt actually a crazed rageaholic-anger-monster after all, but that anger had become the armor i used to hide the fact that jesse's actions or words hurt me. 

telling someone that they have hurt you gives them power. plain and simple. this is the essence of vulnerability. you are exposed because they now know HOW to hurt you. uh-doy. 

i had to learn that i can trust jesse 100%. when i hand him my squishy, fragile heart, he does actually have the power to squash it and pulverize me. but, yall he never ever does. because a broken and hurting wife is about 50 million times easier to love like christ does than a snarling rage-demon. uh-doy

here is how an interaction would go:

1. jesse would say or do something that would hurt my feelings (unintentionally because he's a boy, uh-doy), but INSTANTLY (before i even acknowledged in my own brain, "ouch that hurt") i would get angry. anger was my armor. 

2. in my head he would become the playground bully, so i couldnt give him the power of knowing that he had/could hurt me, so through my anger, i would  now have the upper hand by being the aggressor first.

3. my anger would catch him off guard and he would immediately throw up his own walls to protect himself from my salvo.

4. this defensiveness would seem to justify my anger (if he's defending he MUST be guilty) and we would carry on fighting about the aggression/defensiveness for hours and completely miss the little sneaky heart issue that sparked it all off. 

this method of escalation is insane and frustrating beyond belief and never (or only after 3 hours of teeth-gnashing and crying) gets to the heart of the matter...which IS the heart.

as i learned to slow down ask myself the question, "why the crap did that make me so angry?" i began to realize that it was HURT that i was really feeling, and not the ensuing anger. i had learned in my first 20 years to hide hurt so it had become a knee-jerk thing: feel hurt-->get angry. 

so i decided to slow down the process, to cut the fuse between the teensy spark and the powder keg. i told jesus that i had no hope of doing this through my own efforts and told him to step up and please make it happen in me (obviously he loves a good pep talk).

the first time i tried this with jesse was terrifying. saying "you hurt me" in a darwinian sense is stupid and a great way to not get your DNA passed on. animals come with all sorts of camouflage, behaviors and instincts to AVOID letting predators see their weak spots, and here i was broadcasting mine. soft white underbelly has never been such an apt phrase...

but jesse isnt a predator, he's a knight in shining armor. so instead of his walls going up to protect himself from the she-dragon, when he saw that i was actually a damsel in distress he immediately threw down the drawbridge and came riding out to rescue me.  it was tender yall. AND SO EFFECTIVE. and more than a little bit Aragorn Sexypants.

rather than talking about himself--the way you do when you are defending--he was able to come to where i was, address my wounds, and say, "oh my gosh, i hate that you are hurting, i completely didnt mean for that to happen. i am so sorry."  this was great because it always made me SO mad that he wasnt hearing MY problem first and addressing it before moving on to his stuff (his stuff being, "I DONT KNOW WHAT WE'RE YELLING ABOUT!"). 

so thats where we've been for the past few years. it doesnt always go perfectly like that because there are scars and hurt on both sides of this marriage (jesus is like deep tissue massage a lot of times and he softens you by letting you be hurt and tended to by him), but it has brought us to SUCH a deep and real place where we dont feel like we have to walk around in a full set of plate and mail all the time, waiting for the other one to thrust and parry. (i read game of thrones...and i had coffee...sorry)

taking off armor has started to feel much more like taking off chains. living with my whole heart has made me so much less cold and shut down. dropping my pride and the facade of being bulletproof has been beautifully humbling and freeing.

since it worked so well in marriage, i have started trying to apply it to almost all of my relationships. observation #1: SCARY! holy moly. i know jesse dukes' entire story and trust him with my life...branching out to people who arent this intimate (even closest friends) is straight harrowing because they've probably never taken a vow to love and protect me the way that my husband has.

observation #2:  being vulnerable with unhealthy people (aka anyone, but specifically people who dont value maturity or chirst-like living) can be DANGEROUS. truth: i have gotten stomped a few times by doing this. and it hurt. 

but ever since i stopped making my priority "dont let them (or yourself) see your hurt" it's okay. crying stinks. and getting your heart broken is almost the worst. but at least i get to walk away from those moments knowing that i shared my real self and my real heart. RATHER than those interactions where youre like acting all cool and collected and just passive aggressively trying to back door zing one another. no one wins after those and you just walk away harboring poison for the other person that will eat you right up.

no matter how unhealthy the person i am dealing with, i am betting there are very few relationships where the other person cares so little for me that hearing, "i am feeling hurt by something you said/did" makes them salivate and want to go in for the kill. observation #3: if you hand someone your gelatinous, helpless heart and they--fully knowing that they can--stomp it, that is probably a relationship to get away from for now.

*disclaimer: there is a middle ground between "oh i never wanted you to be hurt," and "AVAST YE! I KILL YOU AND YOUR HEART!" where even well-intentioned, mature, jesus-loving people might not be ready to receive your vulnerability. in these instances, i just try to power through with, "i want you to hear me...this isnt about you, i am not saying you did something wrong, i am only talking about me and wanting to share with you where i am." it gets hard not to escalate or jump aboard the anger expressway when they dont get it immediately. stick with it. like playing dead with a grizzly. when they see youre not trying to fight, they usually stop trying to defend. either way...its not their fault.*

one of the first times that i decided to be vulnerable in a situation where i WANTED to be angry (outside of my marriage) was with one of my BFFs raechel. yes, it is weird at age 30 to be getting into "fights" with your friends (especially those that you met on the internet), but people are people and we are complex and i dont think there is anything to be ashamed of.

aaaaaanyway, we had been through some conversations where we both left feeling dinged up and un-cared for. my instinct was to just come after her and show her all the ways that she had done things wrong. but instead, we both decided to go to that mushy place and just share our hearts and where we were hurting.

it was HARD and it was pretty awkward at first, but it was AWESOME (that's what she said!...coffee). 

rather than one of us having to be declared wrong against some outside standard of right/wrong/rude we just got to care about each other. i decided to put my stuff down and really care for my hurting friend, and she did the same. it came to a point where arguing about the facts of what happened or what was said was irrelevant. because in the end, even if raechel 100% hallucinated it all (she didnt), she had still been hurt.

i had to decide that i cared way more about her heart (and sharing mine) than about being right. period (underlined, italicized and bolded...because yeah).

and thats really where i've landed on this thing. my whole life i have been fighting tooth and nail (and brass knuckles and sawed off shotgun) to be right. to feel vindicated and to feel justified. and it got me nowhere but stressed and frustrated and ANGRY.  when i stopped trying to be enough in some way where the judge in the courtroom rules in MY favor over others, i was able to just say, "here's where i am. how i'm broken. where i need love."  somehow me being up front with how jacked up and broken and breakable i am has given me the ability to love others and help them in their brokenness better. and the ability to say, "i probably did hurt you! i'm an emotional hot mess, after all!" 

its beautiful, but it makes no sense. it's backward jesus magic.

i'll never prove my way into god's grace by being more right than jesse or raechel or anyone. but i have his grace poured out and lavished on me when i say, "i am broken. i am hurting. i need to hand my heart over to YOU."

jesus is the model. he didnt care about being right. in fact, to the letter of the law, it often looked like he was wrong a lot of the time. he said again and again, "yall are missing it. its not about living up to some standard or being right. it's about your heart." he did the greatest thing in the history of all the things when he lost his trial, was declared wrong and then unhesitatingly gave us all his very heart. 

that's where i win. that's the only victory i am supposed to boast in or seek after. and it's his.  so is my heart, and he wants me to give it away no matter how it hurts. i'm working on it.

on chickfila. reluctantly.

throughout this whole CFA blowup thing, i have thought of my gay friends, and for some reason specifically my friend abby every time i have spoken, posted or prayed about this.

she just posted this on facebook regarding how the whole saga has affected her and it is everything i was afraid of and makes me sick in my soul.

i was so afraid as i read this that i had contributed to her feelings of disrespect and invalidation, so when i got to the part where she mentioned jesse and me, i started SOBBING. straight up, non-menstrual, weeping; water just shooting out of my face.

relief, gratitude, wonder, awe. for once, i feel like i maybe represented my king correctly.

i have wrestled with what jesus would have done in all of this. i have asked wiser folks what the bible says about how we are to speak truth to folks who dont yet believe in jesus.

the answer i've received: nowhere does it say we're supposed to call any nonbeliever out as violating a law/code that they dont even acknowledge as true (uh-duh) yet, but instead we are supposed to win them to christ by displaying his irresistible love.

i rarely feel love when it's preceded with a big, fat, loud, "oh, hey, your life is wrong."


and even with these peaceful, positive supports of a blatantly constitutional right or christian values, a hurtful or even hateful message can be conveyed.

whispered love is always more powerful to receive than shouted dissent. an unexpected love creates far more change than an expected hatred.

but the catch is: those good ones are so much harder to GIVE!

so i have clenched my butt and smacked my forehead and been nervous beyond belief as the troops got rallied. so scared that we would lose sight of our message.

free speech: a to the men! for everyone, please! you show me a black, gay, muslim old man who hates me and everything that i am, and i will vote, march and protest to preserve his right to talk about that (and to still sell me delicious fried meats). also, i kind of want to be his friend because, UNIQUE, right?!

but moving beyond constitutional rights and onto our behavior as believers: it's such a fine line between wanting to stand together and letting it become standing against people who think differently than us. and you know, i cant make that call for anyone else because, like most everything jesus talked about, it's not about showing up or sitting-in: it's a heart issue that is just between me and him.

i have agonized at how many LGBT folks this whole thing may have further alienated from the savior that i (obviously) believe created them, loves them and died for them.

and it has rocked me to my core.

so my constant prayer has been that we christians would just keep our eye on the ball. to not throw out the baby (love) with the bathwater (a political/civic commerce issue that we think deserves to be "fought" for).

if youre a christian, you may think i am a waffler, or some sell-out liberal dispensing a watered-down hippie gospel. you know, i am still working through the "truth" aspect of this as it is stated in the bible. i may never fully understand exactly what god thinks about homosexuality, but since i dont struggle with it personally, i'm not sure that it's my place speak with any authority on it.

dont get me wrong: no spirit of timidity up in here. i will speak truth and not downplay the less-PC parts of the bible.

HOWEVER, i feel like there are so many things that jesus talked and talked and talked about and commanded me to do that i dont even come close to getting right. until i grow much more in the area of whispering love to everyone in my life, what right (as a christian...not an american) do i have to start yelling at them about something i dont even understand and have never felt or walked through?

my husband is my hero. he is so wise and well-rooted in the word, and he loves people ridiculously. he almost always has a great point of view on these prickly situations that make me want to fly off the handle.

he calls himself (rather brilliantly) "conservative with truth, liberal with love."

this is one of his tweets this week:

amen.

i feel called to show others a new love that maybe they havent experienced or expected. i will always aim to choose that over screaming my beliefs at them (even if they are truth) and risking misrepresenting jesus' love, or--god forbid--communicating satan's message of hate.

.

yes, jesus got angry. yes jesus spoke truth. but he IS truth itself. and he didnt make signs or protest to proclaim it.

his story screamed the truth for him.

his life.

his love.

the stupid crazy, blindingly insane LOVE that he has for every single person.

do we remember that?

can we accept that?

dare we be that?

.

jesus gave up his right to be right and it cost him his very life. he did it for love.

was it worth it? was it enough?

i want my life to scream yes...yes, yes, jesus! your love is enough.

.

so if youre gay and ever want a christian friend...i hope it's clear, i'm up for that. i'll even buy your big mac.

vocab of the day

i couldnt find jesse anywhere in the house last night. finally, i checked the garage and there he was:

my husband: singing and playing his guitar about, for, and to jesus, on top of the lumber and next to the power tools that he will use to build our family amazing things, and in front of the minivan that he is man enough to LOVE driving because it is what is best for our family.

where i come from, friends, that is what we call a real panty-dropper.

judahpdate

our camera is back from being repaired (for free, thanks to my threats).

so you know what that means...more poorly-composed, ineptly edited photos that are super high-res! i know we can all breathe a sigh of relief now that we're back to that standard.

i wanted to get a picture of the still-groggy layla. i opened the door because our house gets NO LIGHT and because i like the door. i ended up with a bunch of cute shots of lady blue eyes, but this one gave the unintended bonus of some judah hijinks.

he is prancing in glee and his jugular is bulging with a dose of testosterone because he spotted, driving by the house just then, a "BIG DUM TRUHCK!"

this kid has become SO. MUCH. FUN. i can pinpoint almost the exact moment that the switch flipped between needy, boundary-testing, baby boy and awesome, fun kid. it was right at his half birthday. evidently 2.5 is his magic number.

at 2.5 he became fully potty trained. i should note for posterity's sake: we stopped putting him in a pullup at night because he woke up with them dry so many times. in a month of this, he has peed in the bed only twice, waking us up to tell us, "mai have peepee be ewry way-urh."

at 2.5 he stopped the egregious daddy-preferring and started seeing the awesomeness that is mommy. this has been HUGE and only with the grace of god (like, literally and blindly begging for it in the moments of brutal rejection) was i able to get through that period with a smile and some creative distractions that didnt give him REAL reasons to like me less.

after jesse reads him a story, prays with him and sings a song (she'll be coming round the mountain is his new favorite. it has supplanted the song that jesse wrote especially for him before he was born. great taste, judah. sheesh), he demands, "mommy come sing me superman song." if it takes me longer than 5 seconds to get back to his room, he comes to the door and calls down the hall, "mommy, come snuggle me!" obviously, i wait longer every time just so i can hear this. i come running down the hall saying, "you better get in that bed!" and he goes wild and capers off, throwing himself back in bed (i assume he has perfect baby night-vision, because i cant see squat when i enter the room, yet he has never once missed the opening on the side of his bed where the rail isnt).

i say, "what should we do now?" as we burrow under the blanket.

judah: "seeng superman song"

me: "oh, how does that one start?"

judah: "draaaaagon tay-uhls"

me: "then what?"

judah: " water be WIIIIIIDE"

me: "and then?"

judah: "pie-ruhts say-uhl"

me: "and then?"

judah: "loss boys FIIIIIE!"

and then i proceed to butcher that amazing song. judah doesnt mind. he sometimes sings along, catching the last syllable of each verse or so. sometimes he will be totally silent and then just pop in for one word in the last verse or something. these lyrical ambushes are amazing.

after the song is over, i say, "what should we do now?" and he usually says "snuggle me," or sometimes, "mommy pray." if i ask what we should pray for he ALWAYS says "junky moes," first. he means monkey joes, the bounce house play place. this is first among his many blessings.

then i tell him that i am going bye bye. for awhile this was hard and he would cry or beg me to stay and snuggle more. this was like water in the desert for me and i ended up staying for LONG times and he would still cry and cry when i left and it was not fun.

now i ask him the same thing that i ask when i get ready to leave him at church or with a babysitter:

me: "are you going to cry?"

judah: "NOOOOO"

me: "why not?"

judah: "mai braveheart."

this started because as i saw him starting to get scared about being left for church i would tell him that he didnt have to spend time crying because he was going to have fun and that i would always come back and get him. i told him that he was braveheart and that he didnt have anything to fear because jesus would protect his heart. (obviously we never suppress his tears or discourage crying when he is sad, our little routine just turned into this series of back and forth questions and answers over time).

hearing him say "mai braveheart," is awesome on many levels. 1: because it is the toddler version of one of my favorite michael scott quotes. 2: because its adorable hearing a two year old, who is on the verge of crying for his mommy declare that he is braveheart. 3: because it sounds like he is saying "my big fart."

then i tuck him in "snug as a little red judah-bug in a rug," which cracks him up every time, and i say, "i love you judah," and he says, "lobe you mommy," and i walk out of there floating on a glowing hovercraft of uterus because, damn, being a mom is good at times like this.

also at 2.5 he started wanting to help with little tasks, like loading the washing machine (though you have to watch him as he doesnt differentiate between the washer and dryer and sometimes i have found his little skid-marked undies stuffed in with a load of clean clothes in the dryer), throwing things away, cleaning up his toys, putting his lunchbox and book bag on their hooks every day when we get home.

the best was the other night. we were eating dinner in the living room (like you do) and i needed some ketchup. for my own meal. i was feeling so lazy and not wanting to get up, so on a lark, i asked judah to go open the fridge and look in the door for the ketchup and bring it to me. the little sprite was back 10 seconds later, ketchup in hand. embarrassingly, the first thing i thought was, "YES! my own little butler robot! like R2D2 was enlisted to be on jabba's sail barge!" i realize i am jabba the hutt in this scenario, but who cares, yall? i have a free condiment concierge to do my bidding! ...until he foments rebellion and deploys a lightsaber to arm my jedi captive.

dont get me wrong, he still pitches fits and tests boundaries like every two year old, but the fun, hilarious, rewarding stuff is really starting to outweigh the cruddy soul-sucking parts of bringing up a human cub.

a few more fun judah-isms that wont last forever but that i want to remember forever:

-he calls band-aids, "bandaddies." we are pretty sure this is in reference to grandaddy, jesse's dad. it pretty cute that when he gets a boo-boo he asks for bandaddies.

-he just started saying NOPE instead of no. it's way cuter because he doesnt use it with the same situational finesse that an adult would, so it gives an air of aw-shucks ness to his responses. "judah, do you need to go potty?" "nope!" "judah, can i have a kiss?" "nope!" or while playing sardines at his cousins house, every time i took him into a new room to search (all the lights off, per the rules) for the hiding sophie and jesse, i would say, "are they in the closet?" and before i could take a step towards the door he'd pipe, "nope!" every time. i think the dark was making him uneasy in a new house, but the insta-nopes were so funny. he was so sure of where they weren't.

-in the middle of playing or watching TV he will just say, "snuggle me daddy," or "hug me mommy," in the cutest little love bug voice. these guerrilla love assaults are fantastic.

-the kid HATES wearing pants (see above photo). within 20 minutes of going in someone's house (i have only witnessed this at family member's houses, they say it doesnt happen at school) he starts pulling his jeans off or telling us that he wants to take his pants off (he barely makes it through the door at home before they come off). when he did it at home, i thought it was just because i hardly ever wear pants either and he was modelling my awesome habit. but lately, he doesnt care if he's the only semi-denuded person in the house and everyone else is happily pants-ed, his pants must come off. when we're with family, we always let him do it because, who cares, really? and seriously, the little bum and legs in the big boy underpants is the cutest thing ever.

-he knows what red lights and green lights mean. he is my traffic enforcer. if i am coming to a stop at a red light behind other cars, he will say, "stop, mommy, stop," to make sure i know that i dont need to be moving at ALL if there is a red light in sight. if you ask him what a yellow light means he says, "evybody BE careful!"

-chickfila = "chicken a lay"

-he likes to pick up one of layla's paci's and tell me he is a baby. he has never been a paci kid, so this is pretty cute to me. he will climb up in my lap and declare himself a "paci baby," and ask for "a ba-ba of milk." its weird and adorable.

-if he's cold, he will ask for dragon breath. this is where we blow hot air on his neck which tickles him wildly. is we are walking outside and it's cold and i am carrying him he will demand, "mommy, snuggle me warm" and we squeeze each other so tight.

-i cant remember if i have mentioned this before but he calls carbonated drinks, "sugar bubbles." i dont know where he got that or if he made it up himself, but it's kind of right on.

-for some reason, this memory has always stuck with me. when i was about 9, i overheard my older cousins listening to the radio. tom cochran's "life is a highway," was playing. one of my cousins told the other about how her boyfriend's little 2 year old sister loved that song and could sing all of the words and how hilarious and cool that was. i remember deciding, "that will now be my favorite song,." right then and there (was i jealous of the little kid that my cousins thought were cool? i dont know).

a few weeks later i won some contest at a skating party (fastest lap? best umbros?) and the prize was a giftcard to a CD store (if youre from atlanta, it was actually a coin worth $20 at the record store, turtle's...blast from the PAST), and i bought the tom cochran CD: the first ever CD that i bought for myself (i had been given amy grant's white christmas inside of my boom box from santa that year and had scored my beloved "free willy" soundtrack for my birthday (hold me, like the river jordan! so i had those two already). anyway, this became my all-time favorite song. i always requested it at school dances, barmitzvah's and weddings, despite it being an awful song for dancing to. that being said, when cars came out, rascal flatt's did a remake of the song for the movie. since judah loves that movie with a burning passion, i wondered if he would like any of the songs in it. yes he does and the ONLY one he even notices or likes is life is a highway. whenever we are in the car he says, "play lighten song!" (lightning is "lighten a-queen" to judah). or he will bust out singing it while he is playing at home. it's so cool to have him love the same song that i always have AND to have become the 2 year old from my cousin's story who knows all the words to that song.

-he is such a great big brother to layla. he gets so excited when he hears her crying as she wakes up from a nap, "dat cootie pah be wake. mai wanna go and get her." if she is crying in the car he first informs us, "layla be loooooowd," and then says, "dat-dat's okay layla. be happy, layla." of course he also steals toys from her, body slams her and tells her that certain things are "jus for big kids!" but by and large, he seems really tuned into her feelings and wants her to be included in everything we do.

-he is getting such a great imagination and starting to lead creative playtime. he will radio in to me as buzz lightyear saying, "come in star command!" and i radio back as star command, deploying him to some far off sector to search for the evil emperor zurg. he will go, "zurg be in tree. zurg be up dat one? nope! zurg be up dat one? yeah!" he always finds zurg in the second tree. sometimes with jumpy squirrel from curious george.

okay, that turned long. but i am just overflowing with awe at the explosion of development and learning that is happening in this stage. at least 5 times a week i am overcome with how cool and fun and sweet and weird this little kid is and how i am so happy that the sperm that made him was the one that won the race, and that i get to be his mom. i have never been tempted to want to freeze time and keep my kids at any age so far (except for when i was postpartum nutso and said i wanted a newborn forever), but this period is approaching that level of awesome with judah. one day the armpits that i tickle now will be hairy and smelly and he will have a deep voice that pronounces all the words correctly, and snuggling me under the covers wont be so kosher. so the knowledge that those days are coming and there IS an expiration date on all of these little moments and scenes makes me want to linger here as long as possible.

where's the pause button?

sealed with a kiss

you guys are unreal. i am buckling under how humbled i am by your words, comments, emails, texts and PRAYERS. but the cool thing about being humbled by love is that it actually takes weight OFF of shoulders rather than burdening them; so i guess i am not buckling under, but being buoyed upward.

i went back and read tuesday's post and cringed at how badly that COULD have been taken. instead of my normal editing and proofreading, i just shot the vomit straight out of my fingertips without looking back. i wasnt being careful not to offend, wasn't being sensitive to anyone but myself. it was yucky and selfish and it is exactly where i was.

it could have come across that i was calling my wonderful friends greedy leeches who never invest in me. that i was accusing anyone who emails me of siphoning my plasma to sell to blood banks just so they can buy pool noodles to flog me with. that i was taking for granted my healthy, perfect, beloved children and husband.

of course, that wasn't where i was coming from, but if you've been around blog-land (and sadly, especially jesus-y mommy blog land), you know there are people out there who habitually misinterpret motives and intentions and feel hurt or angered or offended by them. there even seem to be those who not only misinterpret, but just don't care to look for your good/real motives, and seem to actively look for and project negative motives onto honest, raw posts like these.

so after realizing how my words could have been taken, i was then immediately overwhelmed with how they were taken. those of you who have reached out to me all really heard my heart, despite the fact that it would have been very easy not to.

thank you. thanks for not condemning me when my crappy outlook might have given you reason to. thank you for your prayers...they were felt. including a freakish "coincidence" that involved me falling, crying, into jesse's arms at a local mcdonalds and ended with a great reconciliation (we are still both so run down, but at least we are on the same team again...what a difference a teammate makes).

you were so very encouraging. you gave me insight i couldnt find in my dark dungeon hole, perspective i couldnt see with the monster of despair up in my grill, camaraderie in this battle that i was sure i was all alone in. you gave me ideas (a list! love it),virtual hugs, and grace...such grace.

thank you for being the body of christ. for being him to me. i'm just sure of the fact that he was using yall to, like the song says, throw me a line, come break the quiet, and surround me with the rush of angels wings (which is a touch christianese for my normal taste in lyrics, but is hitting the spot here).

thank you for shining your light so i could see him.

turns out that even though i am almost always too busy to go anywhere but work and home these days, i still actually am living in a type of community with friends. on the internet! yes, that sounds about 49 frizskillion times lamer than it actually feels in my heart, and no, i will not play world of warcraft with you.

thank you for letting me be transparent and honest and raw even when it doesn't look good or isnt pin-worthy. thank you for welcoming that. i dont do guile, and aside from that, i dont even have the self-editing genes that it takes to be the kind of blogger who only pops in to share the good and pretty (though i LOVE those blogs lots and 100% see why they would want it that way).

though i will always be honest and authentic on here, sometimes i don't even have the self-awareness to have sorted through everything myself and to even know if what i am sharing is really the issue. people are complex. knowing and relating to anyone is tough, but i am learning that the same is equally, if not more so, true about knowing ourselves. thanks for letting me dump the dirty laundry in this space while jesus and i sort and wash it.

i feel better. not great and not cured, but so much more hopeful. nothing is worse than feeling like you are in a bad place and won't ever get out. thank you so much for helping me see that even though i may be in a tough patch right now, it's not forever, and we're not alone.

yall are rad-faces. i wish i could give you all a big hug. instead, please accept a kiss: