There are some days when I’ve just about had it. Recently, when baby-sitting a friend’s two preschoolers for the day, I realized how much one can forget in the six short years since both of my girls have been out of diapers. On that day, the three-year-old got into the paints when I wasn’t looking. I discovered him sitting on top of the kitchen table, making interesting designs on his clothes, and took one look at him and decided he was too far gone to interfere with now. I just gave him some paper and figured at least this would keep him busy for a while. And it did. It kept him so busy he didn’t realize when he had to pee. My table got the worst of it. He peed all over a chair later that day, too. I spent the entire day walking behind the four kids and cleaning up after them.
Some of us have jobs that make us feel that way, too. If we work at a place where morale is lower than a double-jointed limbo dancer, everybody is grumpy. Nobody wants to be there. And nobody seems to notice anything good that we do. The problem, whether at our jobs or at home, is not necessarily that the work we do is miserable, or that the job is too hard. It’s that nobody appreciates our efforts. Attention only comes our way when there’s a problem.
Living that kind of life, with no positive feedback, can be like living a slow death. Even when we have chosen a life we desperately want—a career we feel proud of, a family we’re raising that we love, a business we’re starting—that inner sense of motivation, satisfaction or drive only takes you so far. We are social beings, and we need positive human interaction.
I think that’s what poisons so many marriages, and causes employers to lose the best people. These bad feelings, even if they don’t stem from huge issues, can start to add up as, brick by brick, we build up walls between us. Soon there doesn’t seem anything left to hold us together.
How can we stop this impending death? My grandfather, after every meal, would always smile and thank my grandmother. “Mother,” he would say, “that was wonderful,” whether it was or not. It seems quaint now, and maybe even a little sexist, but I think that meant something to her. He was acknowledging the effort and the love that she put into that meal. When we don’t acknowledge that love, too often it flickers out.
Much as we may know this kind of appreciation is vital, though, when we’re feeling unappreciated, it’s really hard to appreciate anybody else. We’re each waiting for the other person to thank us, before it even occurs to us to acknowledge them. It’s strange how we’re often the most critical with those we’re the closest to. We can be kind to strangers, but are we kind to those who really matter? When we’re not, we cause bitterness to escalate, even if it doesn’t stem from anything huge. Even so, bit by bit, we build up walls between us until there doesn’t seem anything left to hold us together.
I know many of us are tired. After that day with four kids, I certainly was. But think about those around you. Why not break through that wall today, before it becomes too high to climb over? Take my advice: whether you’re at home or at work, stop reading, smile at the person nearest you, and say thank you for something. You’ll be tearing down bricks, and that’s ever so much better than piling them up.
First, my daughter bought a ukelele yesterday, with the money that she makes from teaching piano. That's four instruments she has (not counting the piano that is mine): a keyboard, an acoustic guitar, an electric guitar, and now a ukelele. She's really quite good at all of them. And it makes me so proud.
I need to brag just for a moment: for the first time, last Sunday she led worship in church from the piano. I missed it because I was speaking at a retreat, but my husband videotaped some of it for me. We've had her in music lessons since she was 4, and I always prayed that she would use music for God. And now she can. She leads her youth praise team, too. It's just so fun to watch them grow up.
As for the ukelele, immediately after she bought it she was playing it while we were walking down the street downtown in our small town. She figured out "I'll Fly Away" pretty fast, and Katie and I were singing harmony. It was pretty funny. Three part harmony while we're walking downtown with a ukelele. She figures a ukelele is a great way to meet people at youth conventions, because who can forget a ukelele? And it's portable. She has this imitating a geek thing down to an art.
Okay, next item. I figured out what was really bothering me about my post yesterday, about the woman who had an affair, married the guy, and is now back in ministry.
It's this: I have no problem with people being restored and peaceful and joyful DESPITE sin in their past. What I have a problem with is people feeling peaceful and joyful BECAUSE of the sin in their past. And she talks over and over again in the book about how happy her marriage is now, and how happy the kids are, as if she is happier than she would have been had she not done what she did.
That's what makes it seem as if she is an advertisement for having an affair, despite the steps at restoration that she took, and that's what makes me uneasy. Again, I'm not saying that she shouldn't have a ministry; she isn't involved in teaching per se, and she does have a gift. And God does forgive. So I haven't completely figured it out, and I probably never will. But that's what bothers me: the fact that she is happy because of the sin, and that doesn't seem like a good message to be giving, even if you're also saying that you did wrong.
One other thing: I appreciated all the comments yesterday, but Mary's really made me think. She said that the idea that all sins are equal is a modern theology. Jesus distinguished between sins, and the more I think about it, the more I think she's right. Jesus said teachers will be judged more harshly. He said towns in Israel would be judged worse than Sodom and Gomorrah because Sodom and Gomorrah did not have the Messiah with them. He said that those who cause a little one to sin are in worse shape than others.
I think there's a mistaken idea about sin, because we confuse two doctrines. There is no doubt that everyone is a sinner. We all sinned, and those who break one law are guilty of breaking the whole law. Absolutely. But that does not necessarily mean that all sins are the same. All sins, even what seems like minor ones, are enough to make us in need of salvation and unable to get into heaven on our own. But some are more serious. That does not mean that Jesus' blood is not enough for those big sins; it absolutely is. Yet there are some sins we are especially warned about, like sexual sin and divorce and hurting children. I just find that interesting. I'm not trying to draw any conclusions in this case; I'm just pondering it today.
So I guess I'm no closer to figuring out how to become a more gentle and less judgmental person! Sigh. Maybe I'll just concentrate on listening to Becca play the ukelele and try to forget all these moral dilemmas.
Nevertheless, there are times I'm not very proud of myself, and one of those times was last week. I fear I was snarky to a commenter without meaning to be. Part of it was simple logistics; I was trying to reply to a comment from my Blackberry, and I can't type very fast on it, so I just wrote the bare minimum, which sounds snarkier than I actually feel.
But part of it is also that I do see things in one way, and I'm not the biggest fan of being challenged. That, I think, is the weakness part of it.
God is both justice and mercy. He is the perfect blend of each. I remember once doing a personality test which asked me which one I liked better. I picked justice, but I know many of you would pick mercy (including one of my daughters). It's just which way we are more bent towards.
But it also leaves me seeming perhaps more judgmental than I really am, and for that I am sorry. So let me tell you a story of one of my conundrums, and maybe some of you who lean more towards the mercy side can tell me what your solution would be.
This weekend I skimmed through a book I picked up at a Christian library at the retreat I was speaking at. It was a story I've always wondered about: a well-known Christian artist has an affair and gets divorced, loses much of her ministry, but then is restored by her church. She confesses her sin before the church leadership, she apologizes and repents to all she hurt, and she finds God once again. She is now married to the man she had the affair with, and her ministry is taking off once again.
I had heard the story but I had never heard her side, and I wanted to, because I confess I has always been uncomfortable with the fact that she was returning to ministry. And I leave after reading the book really torn. Our God does restore; we serve a God who did not stone the adulteress. We serve a God who said that everyone could come to Him and confess and be forgiven. And divorce is NOT the unpardonable sin. And yet I still struggle with someone doing something that wrecks two families, and then apologizing, and then marrying the guy anyway and now being perfectly happy. Isn't that saying that God's design for marriage isn't the right one? That sometimes divorce is the right thing to do if you're unhappy? And I just can't believe that.
And yet I know there are people who have walked through very difficult pasts, and have made mistakes they can't change now. Am I to say that they need to live with those mistakes forever, since turning back the clock is impossible? Am I to deny grace?
I don't want to, and yet I also fear that we are becoming far too lax in accepting divorce. We have a culture which preaches that happiness is king, and that you should follow your heart, even if that leads you to splitting up your family. And the divorce rates in the church are still far too high. Even if this woman is happier now, what about her kids? Sure, they may have recovered, but would they not have been better off if the parents had figured things out first?
I really don't have a good answer. I don't want to tell people that there are some things they did that are just too bad that they can't come back to God. But I also don't want to say that divorce doesn't matter; that you can be fully restored and go on as if nothing happened. And how do you find the middle? I can't do it. Perhaps I should just be glad I'm not God, and if I remembered the fact that I wasn't God more often perhaps I wouldn't be so judgmental and frequently snarky.
If someone could please tell me how to navigate this I would so appreciate it, because God has been speaking to me lately about how, in little things, I lash out too much. I need to learn more gentleness, and more grace, and more forgiveness. He is molding my personality to be gentler, and I know that I must allow that. But part of me is fighting, and the reason is that I can't find the way in this woman's case. But perhaps we're not supposed to. Perhaps that really is the mystery of grace.
About Me: I'm a Christian author of a bunch of books, and a frequent speaker to women's groups and marriage conferences. Best of all, I love homeschooling my daughters, Rebecca and Katie. And I love to knit. Preferably simultaneously.
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