expectations Archives - Page 2 of 3

Just Show Up

Post author:Gina B
Post published:October 12, 2015
Post category:courage grace trials

It’s Monday, y’all, and I for one am not into it. I’m staring down another week of busy, after a full weekend of uff da.

Today, it’s enough for me to show up. Still in my pajamas, I’m sure at least until noon, but I’m here. Gina, reporting for life.

But today I agree with Brené Brown that it can be brave just to show up. Just come and say, “I’m here.”

I may not be ready or have what it takes, but I’m here. I’ll do it scared if I have to.

Maybe it won’t be amazing. But what is there for me to do, I will do faithfully. And that is enough.

Our sweet girl showed up last weekend. She spent most of it trying out for a competitive soccer development program. Right out of the gate, the wind got knocked out of her sails by a shaming comment from one of the coaches after she missed an easy shot. It rattled her, threw her day off.

She came home in tears, full of frustration and regret. But I was so proud. She stayed. She did it scared. Maybe not her best effort, but she showed up. That’s important. That’s brave.

Even more brave to go back the next day and do it all over again.

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.'”

She did.

As I saw my husband off to another tough work day, he looked at me and said, “I’m showing up.” Yep. That’s enough.

This fall has been a series of showing up days for me. Days that feel like they ask more than I have (am I the only one who feels like raising teenagers requires a counseling degree they don’t have?).

But I keep showing up. Gina, reporting for life.

Some days, I feel successful. Like a rock star.

Some days, I feel like I’m fresh out of amazing, as my friend and fellow blogger Stacey puts it so well in her book. Grace for the rest.

Faithful isn’t about how well you do it – it’s about doing it, period. It’s showing up, again and again.

I keep showing up because I know He uses what I bring. He takes my offerings and fills in the empty spaces with grace. We can show up because we know He goes before. We are not alone.

Do it scared, tired, empty, lonely, weak, clueless. We show up with confidence because He uses it all.

So let’s show up today.

Let’s bring our best, whatever that looks like on any given day, and know that it’s enough because He has the rest. This can be our act of courage today, our brave face regardless of the circumstances.

Stop Telling Me to Be Amazing

Called to Do Today (And Just Today)

Post author:Gina B
Post published:August 24, 2015
Post category:dependence on God faith grace

I wake up in the morning and the world weighs down on me.

There is so much to do. I have goals to accomplish, dreams to make happen and lives to shape.

There’s a future athletic trainer to develop and a hopeful rocket scientist to challenge.

Before that they need to graduate and learn independence, to drive (Lord, have mercy) and get jobs. There are hearts to be molded and relationships to strengthen before they go. That’s just in the house.

Out there is a husband trying his very best to do what God calls him to do. Right now it’s hard and discouraging. So there’s a foxhole to hunker down in together while we do all the heart molding, relationship strengthening, independence building and future shaping. In the foxhole, there’s cheerleading, listening, believing and praying that needs to happen. I love it, but it’s a battle.

There is a world of injustices I want to right. Hearts need awakening. Friends are in messy places and I want to sit there with them. Books and blog posts beg to be written. Speeches seek a voice. Coaching and leading and creating and loving call.

It’s all good and necessary, and I love it all more than life, which is why I want to see it done well so very much.

Called to do today

But as I walk this morning and lift my weary eyes to God, inquiring what to do about this heavy weight, He reminds me that we are only called to do today. Our energy needs to cover what is in this sunrise to sunset. He will direct and sustain it, and give us what we need for it.

He sees the future them, the foxhole us, and the world of needs. He’s got it all covered.

So I take all that energy I thought needed to cover the next 10 years, and I know it is the portion He gives me for this. Not all it takes for all that I see in the future – just enough of what I need for today.

My soul breathes a sigh of relief. The weight lifts because it was never mine to carry.

It is His. He’s got this. He’s got us.

We are called to do today.

The Extraordinary Childhood of a Third Culture Kid

Post author:Gina B
Post published:March 30, 2015
Post category:culture parenting third culture kids

The Extraordinary Life of a Third Culture Kid — photo by Gina Butz

I grew up on a corner lot with a huge backyard across the street from a giant park. The world was our plush, Kentucky bluegrass playground.

Our kids grew up surrounded by concrete. The nearest decent patch of grass was a solid mile away across a busy street.

One day, when they were littles, I lamented this fact to God. I felt like our kids were missing out on a “normal” childhood by being Third Culture Kids (TCKs). His clear response to me was, “Really, Gina? Your kids have ridden elephants in Thailand and climbed the Great Wall. They have been exposed to cultures and languages most people don’t see in their lifetimes. Is this not good enough?”

He made a strong argument.

Our kids never ate Cheerios or played little league or rode in car seats (yeehaw!). I always feared that their strange upbringing would be a source of distancing from friends here in the States. Instead, it seems to have given them some street cred.

Lately, our kids and their friends have shared more stories about this sad, grassless childhood with other kids school which has led to one girl declaring that she wants to be adopted into our family so she can travel with us (perhaps she doesn’t know she could go on her own?). As the stories come out about exotic places they’ve been and lived, the admiration climbs. It led Ethan’s friend and fellow TCK to say to me one day, “I think I’m realizing I have lived a good life.” Yes, yes you have.

In lamenting the fact that I couldn’t give our children a “normal” childhood, in some ways I missed the fact that we were giving them an extraordinary one. No, they don’t exactly know what to do with a backyard, but they can navigate an airport on their own. They can’t tell you how an American baseball game is played but they have road tripped between countries.

Being a Third Culture Kid comes with its gaps in experience, but the experiences they have are so incredibly rich that I wouldn’t trade them. I’m thankful that our kids spent their formative years in other cultures. More than that, I’m so thankful that they consider it a blessing as well.

A Different Childhood

What Parents Really Need to Hear

Post author:Gina B
Post published:February 24, 2015
Post category:parenting truth

Erik and I were in a baffling parenting moment recently.

We struggle to find activities that all four family members enjoy together. It’s not surprising to us – for the 13 years we lived overseas, we lived in such a tight community with an abundance of like-minded people that we were almost never alone as a family. Vacations, meals, you name it – we had company. Now we’re in the states looking at each other thinking, “So now what do we do?” It’s hard to know how to fill the space sometimes.

We were pondering this issue as we drove to have dinner with friends one night. We decided to take advantage of the wisdom of other couples and ask them what they thought we should do about this.

They listened. They asked good questions. They gave a few suggestions. But what they seemed to realize, and we quickly did too, is that what we needed wasn’t a solution. We needed to hear two things: “You are not alone in your struggle,” and “you are doing a good job.”

Google “parenting advice” and you’ll get “about 106,000,000” hits. Hope you have a lot of time to read every opinion under the sun. Do this. Don’t do that. You can read opinions that vary so widely it will make your head spin. We all want to do it well.

Some of us like to think we’ve found the answers, and can be dogmatic or defensive about them, depending on the day. Or we hide in the shadows, afraid to ask our questions, thinking we’re the only ones who just can’t seem to figure this parenting gig out. We forget that our situations and our children and the way we are individually wired means that there are so few methods that universally apply.

But what we can say to one another is this: You are not alone. You are doing a good job. God is on your side. He will help you. Keep trusting Him.

Let’s say that to each other, and I think we’ll all find it’s true.

Stop Telling Me to be Amazing

Post author:Gina B
Post published:January 31, 2015
Post category:expectations grace identity

Be Amazing

I saw a shirt at Old Navy once that said, “Be Amazing.”

It felt like way too much pressure. And that’s coming from an Enneagram 3. My husband says 3s are driven by “the need to be awesome.”

It might have felt that way because I was in the middle of power Christmas shopping that should have been spread out reasonably over 5 days, but had been crammed into one due to sickness.

That same sickness forced me to bow out of a speaking engagement and left my house a bit of a disaster (pro tip: if you keep wearing shoes in the house, you don’t feel all the stuff you haven’t swept off the floors). I was just proud to be upright and not in yoga pants.

It felt like that again later, on day 15 of my husband’s 16 day trip around the world (Lord, have mercy) when I was just happy that I was awake and communicative without the help of legal stimulants. We only ate 2 frozen pizzas and a deli chicken. This I call victory.

What the World Tells Us

It seems everywhere we look, we’re being told we can do it.

We can be amazing, and awesome, and over the top sparkling, beautiful, jaw-dropping.

Ordinary is for suckers. Lazy people. Those who don’t really care, who don’t want their lives to count. I shouldn’t just survive when my husband travels; I should thrive.

And we have our moments – all of us do. We have shining moments when we reflect the glory of God. We have red-letter days, it’s true.

But living there? Gosh, it’s exhausting. And truthfully, I don’t think it’s what the world needs.

What the world needs is not more amazing.

What the World Needs

The world needs people who are living and loving faithfully, authentically, with hope and perseverance and grace. People who have shining moments and messy moments and are ok with all of them. This is what our souls need too – we need the freedom to be who we are.

The world needs people who get up each day and choose to live the ordinary moments with trust that even this is significant.

We need people who accept who they are, with all their good and bad, beautiful and messy, all together. People who believe it’s all worth offering, and then offer it.

We were created for great works, but also for ordinary ones.

Sometimes we will amaze and other times we won’t. There’s nothing wrong with not being incredible at every moment. It’s called being human.

So please. Stop telling me to be amazing. Tell me just to be me, and I will gladly oblige.

Promises to My Children

Post author:Gina B
Post published:December 1, 2014
Post category:expectations parenting

Promises to My Children

Kids, you have a lot of life ahead of you. You have big dreams and hopes for how that all will go. There are so many things I want to promise you about that life.

I wish I could promise you, sweet girl, that you will become a world-famous women’s soccer player. Or that you, brilliant son, will someday live on that space station (though you know I want you to stay on this planet).

I wish this world would always love you, no harm will ever come to you, you will have an easy path, life will be fair, and you will be happy and carefree.

I can’t promise any of that.

Here’s what I can promise you:

I promise you will always be loved.

I love you so much sometimes I can’t stand it. It spills out all over you in hugs and kisses you don’t necessarily want. Other times it’s harder because our sin gets in the way, but I promise I will always make it my aim to love you well.

And when I fail, which I will, remember that you are unconditionally loved by the One who made you. His is the one opinion that will never change. He’s wild about you. Let that be your solid place, even more than me.

I promise I will love your dad.

He’s a good man, your dad is. I’m blessed. But neither of us is perfect and marriage is hard work. I promise I will love him and fight for what we have. We will show you that it’s all worth it to have someone who is with you for the long haul. We want that for you.

I promise God will always be with you.

If I could, I would always be with you (probably even when you’d rather I wasn’t). I will always try, but there will be times that I cannot be there, or should not be there for your own growth. God has no such restrictions. He will always be there with all you need.

I promise to get all up in your business.

Hey, I’m your mom. So yes, I’ll ask about who you hang out with and what you talk about. I’ll put restrictions on what you can watch and play. When you’re emailing and browsing online, I’ll be looking over your shoulder. I’ll stick my nose in your room when you aren’t expecting me. I’ll make you eat your vegetables and do your chores. Get used to it. It’s because of #1.

I promise to let you go your own way.

I know that might seem contrary to #4. It’s hard for me to write, but I know you need to be independent from us. I have ideas about who I’d like you to be, but those don’t matter. What matters is that you be you. I know there will be many times when I need to just let you go, maybe even let you fail miserably. I will. Or at least I promise I will try.

I promise to always be FOR you.

At every competition, every job, every relationship that means something to you, everything you attempt, I will be your cheerleader. I’ll be the last one standing even if everyone else has stopped watching. Even when you don’t believe in yourself, I will believe in you. I am your biggest fan.

I promise to be with you in the fight.

You know I can’t keep you from all the hard, painful, unfair experiences of life. That’s true. But I promise that whatever you are going through, I will be all in. I will weep with you, be angry with you, pray with you and fight the good fight with you. We will walk the hard roads together.

I promise to keep trusting God for you.

I know you think I’m a good mom. Thanks for that. But the fact is, I’m not enough, and I need to own that. Where I am powerless, I need to trust in God to grow you in ways I just can’t. I will keep prying open my sticky fingers to trust you back to Him, believing that He is doing good work in you.

I promise I will make mistakes.

You know I can’t be a perfect mom, but that’s not what you need anyway. You need a mom who is human and makes mistakes, but gives herself grace and picks herself up to move on. And when I mess up, I will apologize. I can model that for you. Thanks for always being gracious when I do.

I promise to point you to Jesus.

At the end of the day, He can give you so much more than I can. I hope you always believe that. I’m never going to stop telling you and showing you, because when you find a well in the desert, you take others there. He’s living water, your source of life. He’s the best I can offer you. I promise.

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.

Back to Normal, for Now

Post author:Gina B
Post published:July 7, 2014
Post category:third culture kids transition

The other day, our daughter said, “If we could bring Scout out here, I would want to stay here forever.”

So it seems she is enjoying the summer. And why wouldn’t she be? Two of her oldest and dearest friends are here with her, along with a couple dozen other TCKs (Third Culture Kids), for six weeks. Weekday mornings we have meetings, during which the kids are together doing fun activities. The rest of the time we all live together in college student housing all centered around a common courtyard. We’re back to the days of, “I don’t know where the kids are, but I know they’re having fun. They’ll probably come home when they’re hungry.” In other words, it’s their paradise.

It’s also their normal. Our kids came into the world when we lived in a building with 29 other people we worked with, as well as nine kids under the age of 5, most of us within 5 stories of one another. We bought a security door with our American neighbors and placed it 10 feet down the hallway (instead of each of us having our own outside our doors) so that we could leave our own doors open for the families to go back and forth at any time.

When we moved to Singapore, we again had numerous families we knew all centered around a common courtyard, this time with a pool. Every day at 2 pm, that’s where we were. Our last two years in Asia, most of the people from our office lived within a 2 mile radius of one another. Between us there were 60 school age kids, and most of them were homeschooled. There wasn’t a day that went by without friends.

Then we came to the States, and our kids didn’t know what to make of it. Ethan’s managed to find some friends a couple blocks away, and they are over as much as possible, but we’re still praying for Megan to have at least one good friend in the neighborhood. They are realizing that what they grew up with just wasn’t the norm.

Throughout our transition, this has been one of the places of deepest grief for our kids. As much as they want life to be the way they knew growing up, they simply cannot make it that way. They are still trying to figure out how to do without.

And then we come here, and life IS that way, and we’re all kinds of happy and thankful and relieved (it’s hard to think of things to do without friends!).

So what is my conclusion? I confess I’m tempted to look ahead and gather my emotional energy for the fallout of losing this environment once again. I’m trying instead to simply be grateful for the gift of having this amazing community.

You There Yet? Thoughts on Transition

Post author:Gina B
Post published:March 25, 2014
Post category:transition

My due date with our first child was February 19th, 2000. Once that day passed, I had the vague feeling I had missed my chance and was therefore doomed to be pregnant forever. One of our teammates called from a trip in Thailand and asked me, “You have that baby yet?” I informed him that it was good thing he was in another country or I would have slapped him. Silly single guy. Never ask a pregnant woman that.

People sometimes ask me if we feel like we are through transitioning. If we’re “settled.” No worries – I don’t feel like slapping them when they ask, but I do feel like I wish there were a clearer due date, a definite answer. Sometimes it has felt like we’ll be in transition forever.

If transition is a mountain that we are trying to climb, then to be “through” transition should mean we’ll reach the top and start heading down the other side, right? And I would know if we’d done that. We haven’t.

The problem with mountains, though, is that there is no clear top. There’s no due date, no timeline. Instead, the top of a mountain is often flat, wide open spaces, with occasional ups and downs. You’re so close, but you’re still climbing.

That’s where I feel like we are, and may be for a while (thank God pregnancy’s not like that). It isn’t the arduous climb that it was, but all that took a lot out of us so all in all I’m a little tired of climbing. For the most part, we’re used to life here. Still, there are moments when I realize I operate from different values, different ways of doing things, different expectations. I still have moments when I ache for what we left behind. I’m not ready to fully embrace some aspects of life here.

But maybe the goal isn’t to be “done.” It’s to let all that we go through in life draw us closer to Him. It’s to enjoy whatever view we currently have, and I have to say, it’s a pretty good one these days. Transition is a big mountain, but it’s not the only mountain we’ve ever climbed or will climb. We just have to keep on going, trusting along the way. The journey goes on.

Transition Pass

Post author:Gina B
Post published:December 19, 2013
Post category:expectations transition

So the last couple months have felt like the steep transition learning curve has leveled off. It’s like when you’re mountain climbing (or maybe hill climbing – can’t say I’ve climbed that many mountains. Ok none. I’ve climbed none) and you get to that point where you can see the top. It starts to feel easier.

And then you turn a corner and there’s a sudden incline you didn’t anticipate. In my world, that’s called December.

I realized this morning that it’s been hard to admit this, for several reasons. First of all, it’s just tiring. I don’t like to keep feeling like I don’t have life figured out here. I don’t want to face the fact that I don’t have rhythms, routines, traditions, surrounding this time of year. I have empty spaces with no Christmas decorations because I lived for 13 years in places where they were hard to find. I feel like I should make Christmas desserts and give them to people, but after years of $5 bags of chocolate chips, I’m out of the habit. Are people expecting them? Who do we give Christmas cards to? Do I have to go to ALL these Christmas parties? The questions are endless.

Not only that, I can feel like there’s an expectation that we should be “over it.” People have said frequently, “So you’ve been here over a year now? You must be pretty settled.” Well, no, but now I FEEL like I should be. It’s easy to feel like I just need to get with the program and figure this season out. When I talk with friends who have been through this transition back to the States, they are quick to remind me that it’s not true – this creating a new normal takes time. I know that to be true. It’s just hard to be in the in between.

So I took some time Tuesday morning just to think about where we are and really what is important for us as a family. There are just some things that aren’t going to happen. Those 3 strands of Christmas lights I managed to buy (and then I realized I needed more like 8 to cover the house) will stay by the back door. They’re one of the things that we’ve decided get a “transition pass.” In my climbing analogy, this looks like me choosing not to try to summit that incline for now – I’m just going to circle around a little bit and try to enjoy the view from here.

Just Show Up

Called to Do Today (And Just Today)

Called to do today

Related posts:

The Extraordinary Childhood of a Third Culture Kid

What Parents Really Need to Hear

Stop Telling Me to be Amazing

What the World Tells Us

What the World Needs

Promises to My Children

I promise you will always be loved.

I promise I will love your dad.

I promise God will always be with you.

I promise to get all up in your business.

I promise to let you go your own way.

I promise to always be FOR you.

I promise to be with you in the fight.

I promise to keep trusting God for you.

I promise I will make mistakes.

I promise to point you to Jesus.

related posts:

Just When You Think You’re There

Back to Normal, for Now

You There Yet? Thoughts on Transition

Transition Pass