To create

I'm an excellent consumer. And I don't mean that in the wasteful, materialist, gluttonous sense. I mean, I can be wasteful, materialistic and gluttonous but that's not what I"m talking about. My favorite thing to consume is books. I read hours a day, fiction, history, current events, whatever I can get my hands on. I love the ideas and worlds. I eat them up mentally, as one would eat a fresh apple on a summer day.
I also love to consume on pinterest. What great ideas have people come up with? How do you stay motivated? What are tips for the perfect morning? I rarely put any of these things into action, but it's definitly my second favorite form of consumption.

I'm great at consumption, but always just figured I wasn't a "creative" person. And in the most common sense of the word I'm just plain not. I can't draw or compose music. I can't cook without a recipe really or play a musical instrument with any sort of style or grace. I get excited about ideas but have trouble implementing them. I used to think I just wasn't born to "create."

I think now though that consumption and creation are a different side of the same coin. If you fill a balloon with water, it will eventually burst from fullness. If you squeeze that same balloon, eventually all the water will be gone and you're left with nothing, no matter how hard you squeeze. I don't think it's possible for anyone to only consume or for anyone to only create, even me.

I mentioned above that I can't really cook without a recipe. That's true, it's rare for me. But cooking without a recipe is only one way to define creation. I can cook. I can bake. I can start with 10 separate ingredients and make something completely different. I can have flour and cocoa and sugar and eggs and baking powder in front of me and an hour later I can give you a cake. I created something.

I took piano lessons for 3 years and I was bad at it and I didn't enjoy it. Now I wish I could play. There's a piano in the lobby of my office, and a few times a day when no one is around I sneak over to it and softly practice "For the Beauty of the Earth." It's painfully slow work for such a simple piece. But I can play most of it. Where there was silence, I created music.

So if we look at the word "creative" as being able to make something out of nothing, no one is truly creative. The only true creator is God, the only being to really create something out of nothing. And  humanity bears the image of God, and in return we create in our small ways. I don't have to be upset that I'm not a creative person, because it's not possible not to create. We just don't do it from ex nihlio as our creator did. In a way, my lopsided strawberry cake and my awkward, pained playing are whispers of the creator.

It's not Ok

A dear friend lost her mother today. She called to tell me and I knew what had happened before she said a word. This friend is a warrior, a trooper. She minimizes her pain out of habit and when she heard my shock and pain she started to say "It's ok" but stopped herself in the middle. She knew not to say it's ok. She knew she shouldn't because she had to be honest with her best friend. She didn't say it was ok.

And it's not ok. Every fiber of my being wanted to reach out to her, appear in person and yell, as loud as I could "It's NOT OK."

My cousin lost her father a few months ago. Her mother came to my shower, months after her husband's passing. I asked her how she was, and she held back her tears. It's hard she said. I knew that this event was supposed to be for me, but I wanted to tell her she could cry for him. It IS HARD I wanted to shout.

Death is not ok. It wasn't meant to be. The pain we feel, even if it's inevitable, is not ok. It's not supposed to be easy. This wasn't how it was supposed to be.

God didn't make us for death. In the garden of Eden he meant for death to not exist. No one should ever know the loss of a loved one. No one should know what it's like to experience cancer, heart disease. mental disease. These things are not written into our being.

We experience death, so much pain and suffering, and our insides scream at what's happening. It's not because it's natural, it's because it's not what God intended us for. If you ever needed proof that this world is not our home, look upon death. 

God meant us for abounding life, pure and eternal. Sin entered the world. We learned, from our parents' knee, that death is a part of life. Oh, dear one, it's not. 

Death is not part of the original plan of God. God never wanted us to know the suffering of death. It is not ok, it is not easy, it was not part of what God had for us. 

God has a remedy, of course. He would never ask us to carry a burden that was too big for us. Yes, people die, against what he originally intended, but they live again. We will see those God has saved in heaven. 

It's a small conciliation, I know. Right now, it does seem that way.  Believe me, I know. But when we rail against death and people console us saying, "Death is a part of life" and that death should be embraced, I squirm. 

God watched his Son enter the world. He watched the lies told against him. He watched the brutality. This is NOT OK! This is not how it's supposed to be. I hurt for others, I hurt for myself. I wonder if I truly understand what it was like for God, to watch the son he sent, massacred at the cross. 

Fight against it. Fight against the feeling to make it right. It is so wrong. It was not how it's supposed to be. Everything in your being tells you that. This is wrong. Perhaps that feeling is a whisper from the other side. 

Turn your eyes on Jesus, who took death on the cross. Know that it's ok to say this isn't ok, and to hope for a true Eden, which will happen. Perhaps we feel so wronged at death because it is wrong. Death is not what was intended for us. 

My Mom's Favorite Books Are My Favorite Books

I don't remember how she convinced me. I don't remember if she had to convince me at all. I only remember toting around my giant old copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn around with me and finishing it at a family reunion in Indiana.

I had always been a reader, although not the kind of reader my mom would have liked. I begged her to bring me home the next in the Sweet Valley kids series and being crazy with joy when it appeared on our dining room table on Friday nights. My mom lamented that I wasn't reading Black Beauty. I'm just proud that I was so excited over books that I would rather read them in one sitting than watch television.

After being utterly delighted with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, I started to listen more to what my mom suggested. She was OLD as far as I was concerned, but she got that one right. I still read Sweet Valley kids and The Babysitter's Club, but when she brought out her old copy of They Loved to Laugh it was unlike anything I ever read.

I read the book utterly enthralled. Is this what reading is? Not just a mild interest in what will happen to my favorite twins Elizabeth and Jessica (I was now reading about their middle school life in the seires Sweet Valley TWINS), but being utterly taken away with someone that I could not quite understand but still feel a connection to? 

After that, the next suggestion, Marjorie Morningstar, was an easy decision. I'm glad she waited until I was older for that. I finished that book devestated, but with a better understanding with what was happening to me. My mom had it right.

My mom had it right for a lot of reasons. But mainly, her greatest asset in all of this is that she used to teach high school English. I used to think of her as someone who could correct my grammar in homework, but her skills went far beyond. Could she actually size me up and decide what book would be best for me when? 

She didn't say a word when I picked up Of Mice and Men at the tender age of 12 and an avid animal lover. She frowned when she found out I picked up Along Came a Spider arbitrarily off our bookshelf without permission. She never told me no when it  came to books. She just suggested. And she suggested well.

A few years later, she remarked that perhaps I would like the book Rebecca. Again, she was right on target. From that I discovered Jane Eyre. I don't think she ever pressured me toward a book or discouraged me either. She knew me, she knew herself, she knew her training, and she placed  books before me.

Today, I reread A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, They Loved to Laugh, Marjorie Morningstar, Rebecca, and Jane Eyre every few years. I wish I could say that it's because they remind me of mom. I loved those books before she was sick, before she died. I love those books because she knew me, because she trusted me. I hope I make the same decisions for my child like she did for me. Placing them before me with the other crappy books, biting her lip, and hoping I found beauty in them. 

I am grateful to my core that I remember sitting around my dad, my mom, my brothers reading, and me being frustrated that I couldn't do it. I'm grateful that I got so upset that I couldn't read that I threw open a book in anger and stared at it with all concentration hoping that all it took was sheer will to understand what my everyone else found so fascinating. I'm grateful for Goosebumps, for Sweet Valley Kids, for Harry Potter.

I'm grateful most of all that my mom was right about those books. I'm grateful that I get to share them with her. And although I can't claim that I love these books because she is gone, there is a very sentimental part of me that's gets a little weepy when I read and realize that these are the lines she loved, her eyes read these words too, and we both loved them. 

Hopes for my future child

There are a lot of mom blogs out there and I read them all. It's helped me sift through what matters and what doesn't, for me at least. Maybe things will change in a few years, but right now, these are the most important hopes I have for my future kids.


I hope you love something and are really bad at it. I hope you're third string defensive lineman, choir ballerina, cover the absenteeism policy for the school newspaper. And I hope you do it anyway. 

I hope you love animals and are kind to them. I hope you beg me to go back for the dog on the highway when we're going to the school dance.

I hope you seek peace, even when you're in middle school and people strive on strife. I hope you keep seeking peace when it doesn't make you popular.

I hope you will be brave in your own way. Whether that means jumping off the high dive, trying out for a team, or spending a semester abroad in Italy. 

I hope you love books and the stories they tell. I hope you can get lost in the stories of biographies and memories and fiction when the world is too much.

I hope you love Jesus and trust in His promise to you, even when you're tired and don't feel like you deserve His grace. 

I hope you're not disappointed in the lack of toys and organized play you'll have. I hope you'll be grateful for the time you spent creating your own fun, perhaps pretending you're one of the boxcar children in a trailer in the backyard.

I hope you get in trouble for reading too much.

I hope you'll never beg us for a new phone, a new car. I hope you'll be grateful and have a contented heart. 

And dear one, who is not yet conceived, I hope you know how much I love you. I hope that you know that you're decisions have consequences, and although we can't take them for you, we'll take them with you. I hope you'll always be coming home. 

Between Tomorrow and Eternity

The Bible talks a lot about worry and anxiety. When I finally started to pay attention to what Jesus was saying about my propensity to worry my life away, things got a lot better, not perfect, but better.

I don't worry so much about today. When I pray the Lord's Prayer, I ask God to give me my daily bread and He always has. I don't worry about eternity. After reading Randy Alcorn's book on Heaven, I'm pretty dang excited.

I do worry about tomorrow. And the day after. And ten years after that.

I worry so much about the days between tomorrow and eternity that I almost can't enjoy the right now.

I've been running the last month. I've been doing Couch to 5K and I have been able to run every workout, even as it's gotten harder. But after I finish my runs, I think, well, I won't be able to do the next one, that one is really hard. I worry about what will happen when I do finish C25k. Will I run every day? Will I immediately train for a 10k? Will I have enough time? Will I stop running? I worry.

I've been cooking for me and Tom. I cook all our meals on the weekend and make our lunches everyday. I'm doing a good job. We're eating healthy, losing weight, and I'm getting some long overdue time in the kitchen. I love doing it. But I think, I'm doing it now, but how will I keep up once we're married? I don't know if I'll be able to cook every night. Our grocery budget will be too high. I'll run out of recipes. I worry.

I'm probably the healthiest I've ever been. I've been exercising, eating right, getting eight hours of sleep every night, even taking vitamins. I feel good, really good. But I'm pretty sure I'll get cancer in a few years. I worry about the treatment, about leaving young children. I worry.

I've been reading a lot lately. I've cut out TV almost completely to make room for reading, because I know I get so much more joy out of that. I work really hard on the weekends so I have less to do on the weeknights. I come home, don't sit down, and immediately tackle all the projects for the day. The hour or two I have left I use to read. I'm reading some great books, and I'm really happy. But then I think, should I feel guilty I have this time to read? Should I keep myself more busy? I won't always have this time. How will I be happy if I don't get to read? I worry.

I could go on, but I think those are sufficient examples. My life is a happy one. I'm making better choices, I'm working hard, I'm making time for what I love. But I worry.

The Bible clearly gives us hope for today and clearly gives us hope for eternity. Does the Bible explicitly give us hope for tomorrow? The only thing that comes to mind is the passage where it says that tomorrow has it's own worries. Boy, you ain't kiddin.

One of my favorite stories in the Bible involves my favorite disciple and Jesus. Peter sees Jesus walking now water and sets out toward Him. Then the waves inevitably come. He looks at them and as soon as his eyes are no longer on Jesus, his feet  begin to sink. Jesus reaches out and saves him and asks, "Why did you doubt?"

There is so much I love about that story. I love the confidence of Peter to get out of the boat. I love the emphasis to keep our eyes turned toward Jesus. I love that Jesus wasn't angered at Peter when he failed to see Jesus as he should.

I especially love that this passage speaks of my tomorrows. Today I am looking at Jesus. Today I am healthy, today I am active, today I am productive. Tomorrow I may be all of these things, or I may be diagnosed with cancer, I may be overcome with depression, I may burn all the food for the week. But the hope for tomorrow is really the same as the hope for today and the hope for eternity: to look upon Jesus.

I can always look full in his wonderful face. The things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of his glory and grace.

But you know what? If I don't look directly at Jesus and I begin to sink into the waves, He'll catch me. I may fail at my goals, I may die from cancer. I'd rather go trusting for today, being sure in my eternity, and looking full in His wonderful face.

What is there really between today and eternity? I have today because I'm here and Go has entrusted it to me. I know that I have eternity. Tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, is just bonus time. It is another day to choose to look at Jesus instead of the waves. Because I promise you that the waves will come. I know from firsthand experience that those waves can be devastating. To minimize the waves is laughable. To minimize Jesus is insanity. And one day, those waves will overtake you. I pray they overtake me looking at Jesus.

My Ramblings and Questions about What Happened in Ferguson

I'm not writing this because I think I have some amazing eye-opening thoughts that I think you need to know about. I'm not writing this to try to influence you. I'm not writing this to vindicate Darren Wilson or Michael Brown. 

I'm writing this because I'm mad at myself. I'm confused. I'm scared. I'm mad because I don't have a clear idea of what I believe. I'm confused about how both sides are so positive and there is so little reaching across the divide. I'm scared because I'm not sure if it was wrong not to not bring charges against Darren Wilson. I have a degree in race relations and I believe that the system is set up against minorities in America. Does not unequivocally backing Brown's case make me a racist? 

I'm writing this to set out clearly what I'm struggling with, instead of just this mess in my mind that doesn't make any sense. This is a brain dump for me. I'm writing this for my own posterity. If my kids ever ask, what will I say to them? I'm writing this so maybe I can enter the discussions clearly with real questions and well thought ideas. 

I'm hoping that if people do read it, they will enter in to a discussion with me, explaining what I'm getting wrong, answering my questions, and perhaps sharing some of their own conceptions. 

Michael Brown's involvement in a robbery and the THC in his system should have no bearing in what happened.

For me, this is not an argument I give much thought to, except to get mad when people use this as a justification. Stealing a few cigarillos and smoking a joint is not punishable by death. The robbery was reported to Wilson before he stopped those kids. He might have honestly considered them possible suspects. They were walking in the middle of the road and that's just not common sense. Wilson was doing his job when he stopped them, but if he did yell "Get the F out o the road" that's bullying behavior that I don't think he would have used if it was two white teenagers. But I digress. 

Why do people use the robbery and marijuana as some sort of justification? These types of crimes are given community service. Is it because it proves that Brown was not an innocent human being? Do people really want to play that game? Have you never been guilty of breaking the law? Never smoked weed, never broken the speed limit, never thrown a napkin out of your window? I know that robbery is a little bit bigger than these. He should have been arrested. He did a bad thing. I believe people actually take solace in his crimes because it makes what happened more justified to them.We are all  guilty in some way and most of us have time to repent. Brown was not given that chance. 

Was Brown surrendering or getting ready to charge? 

Some witnesses say Brown was about to charge at Wilson. Some say he had his hands up in surrender. Here's where it gets scary to me. If I say I don't know who is right, I'm afraid people will look at me as a racist who trusts policemen and the system and doesn't give crap about the words of Black men. I'm taken back to the 1940s in Mississippi where Black men lie and white police officers tell the truth. I don't want to be that person. 

Yet I do believe that black men are capable of lying, just as I believe white men are. I believe all the witnesses might have been protecting their own race in their statements, spinning what they saw or outright lying. 

The system is flawed and stacked against minorities in America. The killing of an unarmed Black man is a big deal and should be investigated. But what if Brown really did charge at Wilson? Wilson claimed that because of the attack he could not get to his other weapons. What if this 289 pound man was angry enough to charge him? Do we make a martyr out of Wilson because he was in the wrong place in the wrong time?  Do we automatically not believe a white man because of the many deaths of black men shot by white police officers? 

When the transcripts of the case went online, the first thing I read were the witness reports. I needed to know. I read a few. Some claimed his hands were up, some claimed he was charging. This is not an easy question to answer. I am poised and ready to believe that Brown was surrendering, because it would be the easier thing for me. This case would be clear cut and I would be let off of all this wondering. BUT WE DON'T REALLY KNOW. 

Absolutely Wilson could be lying. He could be a racist who didn't value a Black man in the street. 

Absolutely the witnesses who claimed he was surrendering could be lying. Although I believe they may have less of a reason for it. I'm leaning toward believing Brown was surrendering, but either way I am calling someone a liar and I don't take that lightly. 

Are the protestors and rioters justified? 

Now, I almost looked up some academic articles on protests and riots to find out the psychological, political, and social implications and results. However, with the transcripts of the trial online and my limited time for research, I just have made it that far yet. It's on my to do list. 

I don't understand how ruining your own neighborhood, keeping your kids from going to school, and committing crimes furthers your end. 

I also don't understand institutionalized racism and the desperation for justice and the anger that boils up from those wounds. What must you do to be heard if your entire system is against you? What do you do with all that anger? 

Sure people can say fight the system from the inside. That takes time and has meager results. But creating chaos doesn't have results either. Protests let the government know that a lot of people are not going to sit down when injustices are committed. Rioters make the government fear them. Should the government convict someone because they are afraid of rioters? I don't know about this. Once again, this is a brain dump. 

Let's talk about institutionalized racism

People get confused about what racism is. Not liking someone based on skin color makes you prejudiced. Having the power of a badge and targeting an entire race makes you a part of institutionalized racism. 

Black people can be prejudiced against White people. They don't have an entire justice system that has historically abused them, targeted them, and legally institutionalized them. There is no such thing as reverse racism. 

Why the use of deadly force?

Let's pretend for a second that we know for sure that Brown was about to charge Wilson. Wilson claimed he was pinned before and couldn't get to any of his weapons (tear gas, stick, etc). But by all accounts Brown HAD moved away from the vehicle. He was unarmed. Wilson honestly couldn't have used any other weapons? Why did he shoot Brown several times? The autopsy report mentioned at least three shots I believe. The head, the arm, the chest. I could be wrong on this, I read the report hurriedly, but I know it was more than one. Brown was high on marijuana, not meth. A single shot to the arm wouldn't have done it? 

Perhaps Wilson freaked and did the first thing he thought of. He did the wrong thing and he should be charged with it, even if it was a lapse in judgement. This is all still muddy to me but I will try to research it and figure out what really went down. 

So here's where I am. I am scared to post this but I'm also scared of the lack of real conversation that's surrounding this event. If you made it this far, share your thoughts with me, as kindly as your conscience will let you. 

God in the Middle

Most of you know this, but if you don't, I am a worrier. If there was an anxiety Olympics, I would win the gold. I have the kind of anxiety that is a medical condition. Every now and then I try to convince myself that I don't need Zoloft and that ends badly.

What a lot of you don't know is the intense joy that people with anxiety have. I don't have cancer! I'm not losing my job! My house didn't explode! The noise in the night wasn't a precursor to my death! Life is most excellent. Sure, it's a manufactured joy, but it is unbounded happiness.

Right now I'm going through some pretty intense anxiety. Threat Level in actuality is middling, but higher than low. It's a medical concern that most people would take notice of and then go about their day, perhaps mentally noting that if it continues to see a doctor. Worst case scenario for most people is, yuck, I might have to take some medication. But guys, I'm pretty sure I'm dying. I'm pretty sure it's cancer.

Right now, Jesus and I are buds. I'm talking to him more. I am the type of anxious person that I NEED to get to the worst case scenario and make peace with it. People handle their anxieties in different ways and for some anxious people you should never allow them to think the worst. With me, it's best to be factual: Ok, so if your house does explode, what then? Let's solve the worst case possibility. So my worst case right now is that I'll die before I get to be Mrs. Tom Stockman. I'll die before having kids. My family will be lost. When I get to that low, I talk to Jesus. Are you really enough God? If this is it for me, will it matter when I get to heaven? I am more convinced in the pain and anxiety that God is there and loves me than any other time in my life.

If I find out I'm perfectly fine, my joy in God will be unleashed. God is good. I not only get Jesus, who is absolutely enough for this life, I get earthly happiness too. I'll be euphoric and I'll feel like I really know God.

And then I'll forget. My sink will become clogged. Tom and I will fight. I'll get frustrated at work. It's not anxiety inducing and it's not joy-filled. It's in the middle. God isn't there.

Where is Jesus when I'm late for work? Where is Jesus when I'm snuggling Smoot? Where is Jesus in the humdrum frustrations and little blessings of life? Why isn't he there?

I know he is there. Somewhere. Perhaps it's because I don't feel like I really need him. Perhaps it's because I have created habit of only experiencing him in strong emotions. Perhaps I've turned him into the God of joy and the God of anxiety and I've never let him be what he really wants to be: God in everything.

I am a firm believer that God is who he is all the time, but our emotions keep us from seeing that. I believe in spiritual disciplines, although it's not in vogue anymore. I'm not very good at it, but I believe in regular and ritualized prayer, in fasting, in the habit of self-denial. I know these things are taught by Jesus. What I'm not applying is that they are there specifically for the middle. Of course we'll go to go God in the extremes, but what if we train ourselves in these things every day, every hour?

If I know God is there all the time, why can't I see him through the fog of the middle? I am trying to learn the lesson that I know God is teaching me right now. Reach through the humdrum, the daily diet cokes, the night time mystery reading, hold fast to the goodness that is available in the highs, in the lows, and in the middle.