October 2014 - Gina Brenna Butz

Welcome to the Kingdom

Post author:Gina B
Post published:October 26, 2014
Post category:faith

Welcome to the Kingdom

It feels good to be welcome.

I’m not a volleyball player. I’m not much for any organized sports, actually. In most I am, at best, a liability. It’s ok. I am who I am.

When I was asked to join in a volleyball game at our women’s retreat a few weeks, I gave them fair warning, “I will not add anything to this game.” I thought surely they would regret inviting me.

Within minutes, I discovered this was not the case. In fact, I soon realized that there was no level of mediocrity which would warrant dismissal from the court. It wouldn’t even get a sideways glance. We were all equally average or below. Our only objective was to keep the ball in the air. And it was fun. We celebrated. We cheered each other on. We laughed. It was the most fun I’ve ever had playing volleyball.

It was a beautiful picture of the kingdom of God.
We’re not invited based on merit. It doesn’t matter how good or bad we are, we are welcome. When you mess up, there’s grace. Lots of it. And instead of defeating you, it will make you want to get back up and try again. We celebrate. We cheer each other on. We laugh. It’s good. Welcome.

Faith Like a Child

Post author:Gina B
Post published:October 23, 2014
Post category:dependence on God faith

Faith Like a Child

I’ll never forget asking our friend’s four-year-old son to make a wish before blowing out the candles on his birthday cake. Without hesitating, he took a deep breath and said, “I wish I could fly!”

Kids. They ask audaciously. They’re aware of their wants and needs and not afraid to express them. They’re helpless and weak and innocent and foolish and humble.

And to enter the kingdom we’re supposed to be like them.

Being the Adults

I’m an “oldest child” if there ever was one, though ironically, I’m not the oldest. Having an older sister who is mentally challenged thrust me into the role early and hard. It was part of God’s story for me.

But being that oldest, responsible, self-sufficient, trustworthy kid meant I took on a mentality of being the one no one had to worry about. I took care of myself. I was good at it. And I took the same attitude with God. I decided I’d be the one He didn’t have to worry about. I thought I was doing Him a favor. I wasn’t.

Being Like Children

We’re meant to relate to God as children. Helpless, weak, foolish, humble, needy children. Those are not the qualities I most like to exhibit in my life. In fact, they are the ones I am most inclined to avoid. Can I get an amen? Is it only me? Is this thing on?

Lately, God’s been calling me back to this place as a beloved child. He’s reminding me that it’s not only ok to own those places of weakness and mess and need, it’s necessary. It’s when I’m weak that He is strong. It’s in my needs that I find His sufficiency. It’s in my mess that I find the unconditional love I seek.

And from that position of humility, He calls us to ask. Be audacious. Be bold. Tell Him you want a pony. You want to fly. When I’m in that place where I know I don’t have it together, I am incompetent for the task at hand, I am reminded that it doesn’t matter because my Abba is more than enough. He delights to give good gifts to His children. Make a wish.

Me, age 4.

What Being a Soccer Mom Teaches Me About Parenting

Post author:Gina B
Post published:October 13, 2014
Post category:parenting

I have embraced what seems to be the natural calling of an American mom.

Outside the home, I watch soccer. That’s what I do.

Every weekend, sometimes more than once, I am in my camp chair with a water bottle and a phone in hand to text updates to my husband.

Each game brings a certain amount of trepidation. I hope our daughter will get to play the position she wants. I hope she will play well. Please God, I hope she will not get injured. I hope we will win, or at least play well and learn from it. I hope the girls will have fun.

We all do. All the parents sitting on the sidelines hope. What I’m noticing is that we all have different responses to that hope.

How We Hope

There’s a range of how vocal the parents on our team are. Some throw out only encouraging comments when the girls do well. Some restrict their suggestions to their own daughters. Others get more involved, particularly when the game isn’t going in our favor. And then there are the few who mistakenly believe that they need to make up for the lack of direction from our coaches, and sideline coach every. single. minute.

I get it. It’s hard to watch from the outside and see mistakes being made, opportunities lost, to witness fumbling right in front of the goal, and not be able to do anything about it.

The comments we parents make from the sidelines are not enlightening our girls in the slightest. They are fully aware that when the ball is centered in front of our goal, they should clear it. When someone else has taken the ball, they know some pressure might get it away from her. They are cognizant of how the game is going.

Our coaches embrace the philosophy that coaching happens at practice, and during the games they let the girls figure it out themselves. They want them to talk to each other, to realize what they’re doing wrong and correct it as a team. They took their U-17 girls to the state championship last year, so I think it’s working.

Where We Should Hope

The older our kids get, the more I realize that much of my parenting must feel like the overly enthusiastic sideline coach. They know when they are making mistakes, for the most part. They see the opportunities, they know how it’s all going. Do they need some direction now and then? Sure. But not the kind of micro-managing that comes out of a hope that has become an expectation that has become, “how you do reflects on me, therefore I must control the outcome of this.” We need to step back sometimes and let them make their own mistakes, figure it out for themselves.

Ultimately, it’s not our coaching or direction that will get our kids where they need to go in life. We cannot put our hope in our own ability to direct our kids. Our hope is in God, who is a far better coach and counselor than we are. Let’s trust in His guidance of them as we cheer them on from the sidelines.

Just When You Think You’re There

Post author:Gina B
Post published:October 6, 2014
Post category:transition

I walked onto the field a few weeks ago for our daughter’s first scrimmage with a new club soccer team. It dawned on me that I had no idea which sideline parents were ours.

So I did what any person who is plain tired of initiating with others would do, and I used a lifeline to phone a friend. Safe in that conversation, I watched the game for 30 minutes until I had firmly established that I was, in fact, sitting with the opposite team’s parents.

Just when I think maybe we’re over this whole transition drama, it comes along to bite me in the behind. It crops up in the kids realizing that they don’t quite know what to do with themselves on the weekend because there aren’t a dozen friends within walking distance like there used to be, and it’s a fresh grief. Or when I once again get blindsided by the “present proof your children are immunized” process and I feel like an idiot outsider who can’t seem to get with the program.

Thankfully, we have a little more emotional bank account to draw from these days, but it’s still tough. It’s no fun explaining to your kids that it might just be this way for good, or at least for awhile. It’s embarrassing to admit that you didn’t keep great records of your kids’ shots overseas because you never knew you’d have to produce them in order for them to go to school. It’s tiring to once again be the new girl trying to break in.

It’s a whole lot of emotions that keep getting stirred. The journey continues, and we press on.

Being the Adults

Being Like Children

How We Hope

Where We Should Hope

related posts: