CRITICISM

I’m skilled at offering constructive criticism.  I know that sounds funny.  Is criticism a “skill”?  Can someone be particularly adept at being critical???  Maybe it sounds like I’m splitting hairs (being overly “critical”, perhaps), but I should say from the outset, there is a profound difference between offering constructive criticism and having a critical spirit.  My particular skill, I believe, is at offering critical analysis for a constructive purpose.  

For as long as I could remember, you could ask me if I have an opinion, and of course I do.  I always do.  I will come up with an opinion in the moment even if it’s something I’ve never considered before simply because I have opinions about EVERYTHING!  The wheels are always spinning and I’m always thinking and analyzing and formulating new thoughts and opinions.

Like any other particular gift or talent we have, it takes some time to realize that “not everyone is like that” and this truly is something unique.  That probably began happening in the past few years.  Whereas I used to take this for granted, I now really believe God has gifted me to be able to analyze and offer improvements, to see a forest and be able to decipher the most important trees, to come up with better ways of seeing or doing or saying or communicating.  Present me with anything, and I can analyze it and suggest improvements.

I suppose law school honed this particular talent.  “Learn to think like a lawyer” is the mantra they drum into your brain on at least a daily basis.  What they really mean is they want you to learn how to analyze – how to apply rules to facts and form a conclusion.  While it’s a particular lawyerly skill, I love that the Apostle Paul also had this ability.  And, not surprisingly, it is also is characteristic of the D-C DiSC profile. 

Now before you tire of what sounds like my self-aggrandizing, self-promoting post, I have to tell you that I am fully aware that it is just a particular gifting from God and has nothing to do with me, per se.  I am very certain that this is simply how He made me.  Sure, life experiences have developed this skill, but it’s not me, it’s God. 

How do I know it’s Him and not me? 

There is one very, very telling sign:  I hold no emotional attachment to my opinions.  

Seriously, none. If you ask my opinion, you can take my advice or leave it, and I don’t care.  Truly.  Don’t.  Care.  I don’t take it personally; I don’t secretly sit back and wait for failure since my opinion wasn’t followed; I’m perfectly fine even if I’m certain I’m correct and you are going down the wrong path.  I’m equally content being proven wrong in my assessment.  I will offer opinions all day long; present me with a different fact and I’ll offer five different options.  And I can sit back and really hold no attachment whatsoever to the opinion and what is done with it. 

And that’s how I know with 100% certainty it’s God.  Because if this skill was driven by me, I would hold SO much attachment to my opinions that I would become impossible to be around.  I would be the most critical, judgy, controlling person in the world and would be emotionally governed by whether people did what I said or not. 

And I know this for a certainty as well because quite some time ago, that very thing slowly started to happen. 

Looking back now, I see how my constructive criticism began to turn into me developing a critical spirit, how I became judgy.  It didn’t happen all at once; of course, it never does.  But I started to be bothered if my advice wasn’t followed; not enough to really notice it, but just enough to create a little “attitude”. I grew increasingly frustrated when things were being done differently than I thought.  Oh, the frustration alone should have been enough to tell me something was wrong.  But it wasn’t.   I began to have an arrogance about my opinions and “forgot” that I’ve always been perfectly fine with being wrong or having things done differently.  After awhile, I began even secretly dooming people to failure in my mind because they weren’t doing things how I thought best. Now, I never actually said “my way or the highway”, but I’m sure I acted that way.

Sadly, in the moment, I didn’t see what was happening, but in hindsight, I can see so clearly.  My redeemed gift of being able to offer constructive criticism was being twisted into sinful judgment and condemnation. 

As a quick aside, I think all gifts have a redeemed and unredeemed manifestation.  Redeemed, my skill is constructive criticism.  Unredeemed, it is a critical spirit, a judgy, condemnatory, holier-than-thou self-righteousness that has been influenced by pride.  And, unfortunately, before my very eyes, a gift God had given me, which was to be used in submission to His plans and purposes, was being used to fuel a sin pattern that was growing and festering into an all-consuming obsession.  It had grown into a way of life for me; the filter through which I judged everyone and everything.  It had elevated me to the heights of arrogance and driven me to the depths of depravity. 

An overstatement, you think???  Not at all --  not when I see how God had to deal with me in it. 

And deal with me He did.  I’m not even ready to write about THAT because it wasn’t pretty and I still shutter at the thought of it.  Suffice to say, God hated what I was doing.  Hopefully soon I’ll be able to share, but for now, I’m still reeling. 

Meanwhile, my thought for today is simply this:  when I consider the other skills and talents He has given me, what do they look like in their unredeemed form?  I’ve never even thought of that, but perhaps I should because if I fell victim to this once, Satan will try the same ploy on me again and again and again.  The question is, will I be proactive now so that he doesn’t succeed?

Loss

And so it is that once again, our family is embarking down this path of grief.  There were so many losses in such a short period of time, and then there was a brief respite – a time of healing – a wonderful time indeed.  And now, here we are . . . 

. . . again.

The phone rang this morning at 6:19.  By the time we reached it, the caller had moved on, and my cell phone was ringing.  I knew the news even before I could utter a “hello.” 

Gramps has died. 

That news is only a few hours old -- indeed, I haven’t even finished making all the necessary phone calls -- but already I’m wrestling with my emotions:  joy & relief that he is finally with Jesus coupled with an ugly, selfish pity as the familiarity of death and grief in recent years gives rise to a measure of dread knowing what lies ahead. 

In fact, I already had a bit of a tantrum with God in the shower this morning, the source of my fit being the feeling of injustice at only having three days.  Acting as if God owes me anything (another topic for another post, another day), I'm throwing a fit because I only got to have January 1st, 2nd and 3rd.  You see, in my world, I’ve been reveling in the fact that this is a fresh new year with no grief or loss in it!  I’ve even shared that glee with others and have been riding along on the joy of that feeling.  I love new prospects, new pages, new books, new opportunities, new years with no messes in them yet.  And after the past 2+ years being ravaged by death and loss and many, many tears, I relished the idea of a brand new year.  I’ve felt like Anne of Green Gables as she marvels to Marilla “isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”  This year had that same feeling. 

But now, on day 4, Gramps has died.  And we are now again in "that" season.  Planning services.  Remembering a life.  Pondering death.  Wrestling with the tension inherent in the death of a saint.  Processing paperwork.  Notifying loved ones.  Locating friends.  Writing an obituary.  Thanking Jesus for bringing Gramps home.  Questioning if we really did all we could to provide for and comfort him in his illness.

And so I’m sitting here confronted with a decision:  I can choose to stay in my pity party, or I can refocus and walk through this season differently. 

It is of course no coincidence that I can't get this verse out of my head:  “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”  (Psalm 116:15).  If this is how Jesus feels,  I too can choose this attitude.  

So what does that look like?

These past two years, Robert and I have dedicated a great deal of time and effort questioning every care decision we’ve made, struggling to make the right choices in the face of no good alternatives, entertaining guilt when unable to meet the self-imposed expectation to do more, trying desperately to reconcile the cruelness of dementia with the faithfulness of a life well-lived and wrestling with another loss of a family member, a loss unlike death since his body remained alive.  I would love to say we went through all of this beautifully and unscathed.  But in reality, we've really had a hard time dealing with so much of this.  

In light of that, this really is a day of joy. It is a day to celebrate the end of a faithful life, to rejoice knowing Gramps' suffering is over, to smile at the reunion taking place between a dad and a daughter he didn’t know had already gone ahead of him, to ponder the perplexing way in which death has restored to him a dignity that was lost to dementia and diapers. And in many ways, we’ve already walked through the loss.  It’s been a long path of saying goodbye.  That’s one of the blessings and curses of dementia.  So to finally see an end to all this, there truly is much joy in this day.

As I look in the faces of my boys, I can feel sadness at the loss of another important piece of their history, or I can feel gratitude that because of Gramps’ life, these boys are here.  Presented that way, the choice is easy.

I will choose to embrace the peace that is already overcoming me and be joyful knowing he’s finally gone home, a life well-lived did in fact matter and Gramps can now – at long last – be at peace. 

Edgar Eugene Livingston

July 11, 1922 - January 4, 2011

"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints."  Ps. 116:15

Sleep

The other night, as I was falling victim to my kids' illness, my husband and I had a curious conversation that went something like this:

Him: “Why don’t you go to bed?” 

Me:   “It’s only 8:30”.

Him:  “Ya, but you’re sick, you need the sleep.”

Me:  “I know, but it’s only 8:30”.

Him:  “So what? You need the extra rest.”

Me:  “Probably . . . but it’s only 8:30.”

Him:  “Lisa, you’re sick.”

Me:    “I know I am, but it’s still only 8:30.”

No matter what he said, I couldn't bring myself to go to bed.  After all, it was only 8:30 -- who goes to bed at 8:30???  Even when they're sick, who goes to bed at 8:30??

Probably quite a few people do.  But I wasn't about to.

My refusal wasn't because I wasn't tired or because I didn't need the sleep.  In fact, I was completely exhausted, was rather useless in my tired state, and really could have benefited from the extra sleep. Nevertheless, there was something in my brain that resisted going to bed.  

Quite honestly, I have a bit of an issue with the whole "concept" of sleep.  I’m sure that sounds weird to some of you – it completely baffles my husband who ADORES sleeping.  But really, I generally view sleeping as a waste of time.  So much more could be accomplished if I didn’t have to spend SO much of my life in bed.

I think my real issue is that I don’t like that God designed me to need to stop and refuel with sleep.  I actually think it’s so silly that when it gets dark, I have to lay down in bed and close my eyes and slip into a state of unconsciousness for several hours on end. If seems like such an odd need -- especially when compared with the awesome, incredibly-powerful things the human body can do.  Think about it – I don’t even have to charge my cell phone battery every day.  Why should my body -- which is much more sophisticated than a cell phone -- require daily recharging?

This is pure speculation, but I think perhaps one of the very reasons for this need is that it keeps me aware of who I am, or maybe more precisely, who I am not. As it is, I already have far too independent a spirit.  If I were to operate in my full brokenness, I would need nobody and nothing.  I’d be like the two-year old who insists “I can do it myself.”  I would be completely self-sufficient, there'd be nothing I couldn't do, and I would be all I would ever need.

Sleep, however, is one of the things that teaches me that I have limits.  It continually reminds me that I have a very short operational life and need to recharge regularly.  It forces me to accept the fact that while I, as a human, may be a spectacular creation, I won't last for more than a couple days before I will completely fall apart if I don't rest and recharge.  So great is the body's need for sleep that it will shut down and die without it.  To me, that is so bizarre!

Yet, in His grace, I think God knew this would be difficult for some of us, which is why He inspired the psalmist to write: “He MAKES me lie down in green pastures.”  (Psalm 23:2).  “Makes me” because left to my own devices, I wouldn’t choose to do it myself.  "Makes me" because He knows my independent spirit drives me to think I don't need rest.  "Makes me" because I need to know that He is the creator, and I am the creation.  

So I reluctantly submit, every day, kicking and dragging my heels the whole way.  With a stubborn, resistant heart, I force myself to go to bed -- not because I want to, but simply because He "makes me" and ultimately, because I trust Him.

I just wish it wasn't so hard.

Patience

I’m not a patient person.  While I like to think I have moments where I can exhibit some measure of patience, by and large, this is not a word most people would use to describe my character.

And yet, patience is one of the traits I find I most need as a mom.  So many of my parenting issues are somehow related to my lack of patience:

The kids take longer than the time I have allotted to get dressed, and I find myself getting overly irritated simply because I want them to stay on my schedule.

My boys are telling me a super-long story with lots of details and I feel myself getting very antsy because I’m trying to get on to the next task.

I’m repeating myself for the 337^th time in a day and I’m getting angrier than the situation warrants because in my impatience, I want my children to understand, respond and conform their behavior all right now. 

Not surprisingly, one of the most frequently-uttered prayers in our house is for me to be patient:  “Jesus, I need you to help me to be patient with the boys and not to allow my impatience to lead to irritation or anger.”  Sounds like an okay prayer, though if I’m being completely honest, I’ve often found myself even getting irritated at God that He’s not answering this particular prayer fast enough.  “I want to be patient – and I want that yesterday, or at least right now.” 

Just this past week, though, God spoke something to me that hit me hard in the moment and has continued to convict me on this issue.  He showed me that I’ve been praying the wrong prayer.  Me, in my self-centered “it’s all about me” humanity, has been asking God to “help me” in my efforts.  I put the burden on me and have relegated God to being the helper. Even writing this now, I’m amazed at my own arrogance. But putting God in the passenger’s seat is not how God changes me.  I do not transform myself into the image of God.  Rather, it’s a work of the Spirit from the inside out.  (Romans 8).

Now before I go too far down that road, I know scripture calls the Holy Spirit our “parakletos”, a word often translated as “helper”.  (John 14:16).  And while I’m not disputing this function of the Holy Spirit, I’m simply saying in this particular situation, God showed me that I’m getting the ordering of things wrong.  Yes, the Holy Spirit is my Helper, but I can’t do the work of changing myself.  Real meaningful character change is a function of the Spirit working in me.  Indeed, for that reason, patience is identified as a “fruit” of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23) not a “fruit” of my own good works or well-meaning efforts.

So the more I allow God to pour His love into me, the more He can transform me into the woman He wants me to be.  It’s not about my own efforts to “be more patient”, but is about allowing God to fill me so I can be changed more and more to conform to His image.  (Rom 8:29).  

Trust

He was an alcoholic.  I knew that. 

He had an insatiable porn addiction.  I had no clue.

Apparently, while I spent morning, noon and night at work, my ex-husband was on the internet, prowling from one obscene website to the next.   He spent countless hours everyday pandering to this addiction.  I eventually learned that he would even sneak out of our bed in the middle of the night to live in a virtual world feeding his lust and curiosity. 

I never thought to look through an internet search history.  I never stumbled upon a suspicious credit card charge.  Not once did I even sense his absence from our bed.  I really was clueless.  

It turns out there was a lot I didn’t know.  How could I have been so unaware?

Looking back, I know I lived with a belief that his experience was my experience and I trusted him implicitly.  Perhaps I should really say I trusted him naively.  I thought he was as fulfilled in our marriage as I was.  I thought his values were the same as mine.  I thought he was doing what he said he was doing.  I never even considered the possibility that he might be living a life completely unknown to me.  Seriously, it didn’t even occur to me that he wasn’t on the exact same page as me. 

So when I finally learned about what was really going on, I was devastated, not just because of the nature of his actions, but perhaps even more because I felt so stupid.  I felt stupid for trusting someone who was obviously so untrustworthy.  I felt stupid because so many other people knew what he was doing but I didn’t.  I felt stupid thinking I must have missed obvious signs.  I felt stupid for having been duped so readily, so easily, and so frequently. 

But is trusting someone stupid?  Would I rather trust and risk it being violated again, or choose to live a life where I never trust anyone ever? 

I had to wrestle with that issue for a long time.  Finally, though, I had to face the fact that I could go through the rest of my life having “trust” issues, or I could figure out how to move forward.  One of my favorite verses reminds me that “the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy but that Jesus came to give me life, and life to the fullest.”  (John 10:10).  Those words empower me to face whatever challenge is before me since I’m unwilling to succumb to the alternative, namely, allowing Satan to have victory in my life. 

So to face this challenge, I had to come to terms with the fact that it was his behavior that was wrong and his behavior that needed to be changed.  He was not trustworthy.  He took advantage of my trust.  He betrayed my implicit confidence in him. The answer to his untrustworthiness was not for me to never trust again.  Certainly, I could be “wiser” in trusting people in the future, but making a vow that “I’ll never trust anyone again” simply could not be the answer. 

But we often make vows like this:  vows that are borne out of extreme hurt, pain, or disappointment; vows that can shape our entire future life course.  These vows have great power.  But I don’t want the rest of my life to be shaped by someone else’s actions, by somebody else’s brokenness, or by their wrongdoing.  Trust is necessary, in varying degrees, in all of my relationships.  It only makes sense that the enemy definitely wants to “steal, kill and destroy” those relationships by keeping me from ever trusting again.  But that’s not the life Jesus died to give me.  And it’s not the life I choose to live.

Correction

I think I overcorrect my children. 

Some of you reading this who know my kids may think their behavior could use MORE correction, not less.  :) But seriously, I struggle with this. 

Like most moms, my greatest influence on my mothering is my own mom.  I had a terrific mom – still do – but I also grew up in a very legalistic religion.  Rules and regulations with plenty of nicely worded ‘thou shalls and thou shall nots’ permeated the teaching.  Of course, it was all under the guise of being “biblical”. 

Though I’ve been away from that religion for decades, that legalism shaped me as I was growing up and still rears its head.  While I’ve long since discovered what it means to live in “grace” I sometimes find legalism permeating my mothering. 

You see, I’m not always certain what behavior needs to be corrected and what does not.  Shouldn’t every infraction be addressed?  What is simply immaturity, i.e. kids being kids?  Or is acknowledging that “they’re being boys” really just me giving an excuse for bad behavior?  When do I need to ignore something and when do I need to intervene?  If I extend grace or mercy towards my kids, is that really the best choice, or am I teaching them they don’t really need to obey or that the rules will only be enforced “sometimes”?  I don’t necessarily think these thoughts on a conscious level in the moment, but I know they undergird some of my in-the-moment choices – especially when I’m tired or emotional.  That is when these doubts run rampant.

The problem with legalism is that it is grounded in fear – fear that bad consequences will happen if all the rules are not obeyed perfectly.  When I’m being a legalistic mom, I’m really operating out of a fear that unless I’m on top of every single issue, every single time, my kids will grow up to be banshees.  That’s my fear-based thinking.

But my rational mind tells me that it simply cannot be that every single action needs correction.  Moreover, when I consider how God parents me, I don’t see Him attacking my every shortcoming.  Instead, God focuses on particular areas of my life and works on those.  He doesn’t nit-pick my every move.  Indeed, I couldn’t even imagine how overwhelmed I’d feel if He focused on my every infraction:

“Lisa, you didn’t do your devo this morning.  In fact, you haven’t prayed for your kids in the past two days.  No, you may not speak to your husband that way.  Was that anger I heard in your voice?  You need to sit in your room until your attitude improves.  Did you not do any laundry?  Was that another piece of chocolate you ate?  Did you really just lie to that person?” 

And on, and on He could go. 

But He doesn’t.  My God lets an awful lot of my behavior slide.  I know it’s not because He’s perfectly pleased with me, but rather that He knows what to focus on and what to leave for another day.  He “knows how I am formed, and that I am only dust.”  (Psalm 103:14).  Even when I know better, He doesn’t jump on my every action and seize every opportunity to correct me.

And yet, I still do that with my kids – not always, but often enough that it bothers me.  Unless I’m intentional and very diligent to do the opposite, my tendency to legalism will govern and overshadow everything else.   Unless I decide which behaviors need to be corrected and which can be saved for another day, I’ll spend my every moment correcting my kids.  Ultimately, it comes down to trust:  unless I trust that God’s way of parenting me is a model for me to parent my kids, I will simply engage in a pattern of behavior modification that does nothing to help me reach my children’s hearts.  And it is only in reaching their hearts that real and lasting life change can happen.

Support

Before my oldest son was even born, I knew that I was going to breastfeed him.  To me, there was no other viable option, so I was prepared to begin that process immediately upon his birth.  I remember thinking about how sweet that would be – just moments after birth, having my baby begin nursing as I looked down on him in awed amazement. 

Things, however, didn’t quite turn out like that.  My son needed to spend the first few days of his life in the NICU and his first nursing was postponed for a couple days.  When he finally was able to begin nursing, it didn’t go as well as I had hoped.  In fact, nursing did not go well at all for a very, very long time. 

Perhaps I was a little naïve, but I simply didn’t anticipate that breastfeeding would be so difficult.  I just presumed that such a “natural” function would require no special effort.  For some women, that’s true, but that was not my experience -- not at all. 

Within days of bringing my son home from the hospital, my excitement about nursing quickly turned to complete despair.  Each day brought new challenges and one problem seemed to beget another:  my son couldn’t latch, I became engorged and then had blocked ducts, I was in such pain from pumping and attempting to nurse that every session was marked with extreme pain.   Mommy & baby quickly grew completely frustrated, and trying to figure out how to nurse while frustrated & crying never works. The various contraptions given to us by the lactation consultant at the hospital didn’t help and I soon had no idea what to do.  I felt like a complete failure and seeing no other options, was ready to give up!

My poor husband felt so useless.  In desperation one day, though, he placed a call to a La Leche League.  (How he even knew of that resource or where to find a phone number for a contact is still beyond me).  He brought the phone into the bedroom where I was tearfully struggling through another unsuccessful nursing session.

Over the speakerphone, this woman I didn’t even know began asking me questions about what was happening.  But strangely, when she heard of the difficulties, she didn’t confirm my fear that I’d never succeed.  In fact, she wasn’t despairing at all; she was oddly optimistic.  Before long, I found that her optimism was contagious and I felt my feelings changing.  Talking to her calmed my crazy thoughts; I actually felt my negativity dissipate and I began to feel hopeful.  It was amazing!

When I eventually got off the phone, my son still couldn’t nurse, but I remember thinking I had found the solution.  It wasn’t in a technique, a position, or a device.  It was in having support.  This stranger I didn’t even know made me believe it would be possible to nurse; she understood the challenges I was facing, but had knowledge and experience to share with me and to encourage me.  For me, support was vital.

To this day, I find that to be true in all aspects of parenting. I can spend countless hours pursing various parenting techniques, theories, methodologies, strategies and philosophies, but in the end, motherhood is all about having support.   

There is just something really profound that happens inside me when I hear someone validate what I’m thinking or experiencing.  To know I’m not alone does more for me than even an immediate solution to the problem at hand could do.  I know this is not simply my experience; I’ve talked to countless women who crave support as much as I do. 

Sadly, though, we live in a feministic-driven society that encourages – if not mandates – that motherhood be an independent venture.  But I know God didn’t intend it to be that way.  He wanted young moms to learn from older moms – to bring their babies home to a family that included a mom and grandma and aunts and sisters, all of whom could help the new mom and provide her the necessary support. (Titus 2).

But just because God intended it to be this way doesn’t mean it’s easy.  I find myself having to be extremely intentional to find and maintain the support I need.  I’ve had to seek out mentor moms who are ahead of me who can give me input when I’m facing a new situation.  I’ve had to find other moms who can come alongside me because they are right there in the trenches with me.  And I’ve also had to pursue other moms who are behind me, looking to me to give them encouragement, advice and perspective.  I know they need support as much as I do.

While all of this takes a great deal of time and effort, I know it is worth it.  I can quickly get to the end of myself when I’m relying only on my own knowledge and experience.  Motherhood is far too difficult for me to try to navigate on my own.  I need support.  I can’t do it any other way.