life lessons

Why I Don’t Teach Sunday School . . . or . . . Finding My Yes

Why I Won't Teach Sunday School . . . or Finding My Yes
photo by Jorigė Kuzmaitė

 

You will never see me teaching Sunday School to children.

It took me years to be able to say that without embarrassment. What kind of person isn’t willing to teach children? Does Gina not like children? Does she not see the great potential in shepherding young souls? These are the questions I was sure people would ask.

When my kids were little, and someone stood up front at church to talk about how important children’s ministry is (I swear in the background I could hear Whitney Houston singing, “I believe the children are our future . . .”) I would sink down in my seat, refusing to make eye contact, feeling terrible.

Then, one day, it hit me, “I am not called to this.” And suddenly I was free. I felt like Phoebe, in the pilot episode of Friends:

I don’t want to because it’s not what I’m supposed to do.

My calling is to other activities, things that you probably don’t want to do. I know this, because often when I tell people what I enjoy doing, they get a look on their face like they just smelled something weird. They would hate what I love. And that is as it should be.

We weren’t all given the same passions or gifts. How boring would that be? And ineffective. This isn’t Divergent. Five factions isn’t going to cut it.

Since coming back to the States, I have had opportunities to minister in a variety of ways unavailable to me overseas, which is fabulous.

What’s hard is discerning what I should and shouldn’t do.

At first, I felt I should say yes to everything because if I didn’t they might stop offering. Over time I’ve learned that when I say no to less ideal opportunities, it leaves space to pursue that which I love. God knows the good way I should walk, and He can guide me to the best yeses.

There is great freedom and joy in knowing that I am learning to give my time to what I am created to do, rather than just doing what I see, or what is asked of me. I want to give my energy to the activities God has for me, not what others want me to do.

In saying no, I am leaving space for someone who truly IS called to do that.

And I hope she does. She probably will, because she wants to say yes. And I will say yes somewhere else. There, we will both find joy and life.

So go ahead, ask me to teach Sunday School. I will politely decline and feel no remorse. It’s just not my calling.

What about you? What are you saying yes to today?

 

 Related posts:

Stand at the Crossroads

Learning to Respect My Limits

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What No One Told Me About Parenting Teens

What No One Told Me About Parenting Teens

Since we have two teenagers in the house, I’ve realized there are pieces of information about what this parenting teens gig entails that no one told me.

I suspect this is because the ones who know are too busy trying to manage it themselves, those who are past it have forgotten, or maybe people have tried to tell me but I just didn’t listen. All viable options. Regardless, here is what I’m learning no one told me:

It’s tiring.

Really, really tiring. Suddenly we’re managing a thousand details of who needs to be where and when and what that means about how we’re going to eat and sleep and see each other. They no longer go to bed at 8 pm and in fact choose the hours between 8 and 10 to broach deep, emotional topics. Not my prime time, unfortunately.

It’s emotional.

Really, it seems to require a counseling degree which I, unfortunately, do not have. Teens have emotions – lots of them – and it’s a constant balance of affirming those emotions and not letting them take us for a wild ride. Boy, I hope we’re somewhere in the middle.

Suddenly it all matters.

When they were little and we wondered whether or not our five year old should play soccer or dance, it wasn’t that tough a decision. Now, it’s, “Should my child try to get into this development program that might lead her to that professional career she wants?” and “Where should our son go to college?” The stakes just got higher, people.

It can be lonely.

I don’t think I’ve found it this difficult to connect with friends since our kids were toddlers and I was tied to nap schedules. This might be a side effect of moving to a new place (hence losing the friends I’d made during the “let’s get the kids together so we can hang out” stage) but I find that coordinating time with friends in between work and practice schedules and just life is like finding a four leaf clover. I spend an inordinate amount of time in my car. Audiobooks are my new best friend.

I love seeing who they are becoming. 

It’s the coolest and scariest thing to see your kids be partly a reflection of you and your husband, and partly their own unique person. I am both proud and a little nervous that our kids have inherited my snarky humor. It’s a dangerous trait! They are us and they are not, and it’s a joy to be part of them learning to own their faith, their ideas, their dreams. They’re like our little padawans.

I don’t want it to end.

Oh yes, I heard from everyone that this would go by quickly. I heard, “the days are long but the years are fast.” I heard it, and I believed it, but I always imagined a sense of completion, of anticipation of the time when I would have my time back. I didn’t know how much I would not want this season to be done. I suggested to our son that he attend college nearby and live with us forever. He replied, “I could, but then I might not become a contributing member of society.” Ok, you win, you can go.

It’s been a surprising, exhausting, stretching journey so far, and we’re not done yet (thank goodness, cause I think I’m just hitting my stride). For those heading in to this chapter – hang on, friends, it’s a great ride.

Related:

Promises to My Children

I Am Not My Child’s Saviorr

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Finding Your Own Voice

Finding Your Own VoiceThank God for those mint green Converse shoes.

Do you know what they mean to me? The fact that you wanted them means you are learning to know your own mind. My girl, who so often fears choices because they might not be “right,” you knew that you wanted those.

And then you wanted to wear them with your dress. Your words were, “it’s just like those movies where the girls aren’t girly girls, so they wear shoes with dresses.”

Yeah, it is. Let’s pull out Pretty in Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful, although probably you’re thinking of something else since those are my movies, not yours. My heart skipped a little just seeing you own who you are.

All your life, this is what I have wanted for you – that you would know yourself and claim it. That you would see that how He has made you is so very, very good. That you would love how He made you a bundle of sweet, heartbreaking empathy and tough, play through the hurt grit. He made you to love puppies and hate pink. He made you sweet and sassy.

I know that in the age you are, you have so much pressure to be what others want you to be in order to fit in. It might just be a pair of Converse (that we scored on a sweet sale), but to me, it’s an answer to prayer, that you would learn to express who you are and know that it is good.

I am so glad that in the midst of all the voices, you are finding your own.

Related:

Beautiful

Hopes for My Daughter, On Turning 13 

Promises to My Children

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Stop Telling Me to be Amazing

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.

Related posts:

Being Human

Can We Be Both? 

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What Being a Soccer Mom Teaches Me About Parenting

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What Being a Soccer Mom Teaches Me About Parenting
Photo by Arseny Togulev on Unsplash

 

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.

 

related posts:

Focusing on the Right Goals 

Why It’s Good When We See Olympians Fail

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Seeing God in Legos

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Seeing God in Legos

My title is not meant to imply that I have seen the face of God in a Lego creation, a la the Virgin Mary in a piece of toast (especially not the creepy little guy above, courtesy of Ethan); rather, that in watching a young child play with Legos, I saw a bigger picture of Him.

We start our conference days with worship. This morning, the worship leader’s young son was sitting at our table. He availed himself of the large Lego blocks on the table (they’re great – yesterday I made an iphone holder out of them for myself). Over and over he attempted to build a structure using all the blocks, arranging and rearranging them. At this point, I wouldn’t peg this kid as a future structural engineer – a little top heavy, kiddo – but every time the blocks collapsed he laughed. When it was completed, it became a car he drove around the table. Sometimes it carried the candy on the table. Mostly the candy went in his mouth though (who can blame him?).

I was amused. He was fun to watch. It occurred to me that I wasn’t the only one enjoying him. God was having a great time watching him too. In fact, I thought, if I can find such joy in watching this little guy, how much more does God? He created our capacity to enjoy, and no one can enjoy like He can.

Do we think of Him that way? So often our view of God is too serious, like He would frown disapprovingly and shush a child playing during worship. The reality is He loves kids. He loves their creativity, their lightheartedness, their pure joy. He made it. He participates in it.

I think God laughs and enjoys His creation more than anyone. How could we enjoy something more than He does? The word says that He inhabits the praise of His people; He inhabits our joy as well.

I want to hear His laughter in ours. I want to see His smile in others’ faces. I want to be conscious of Him enjoying life with me.

Our inclination toward joy is from Him. I saw it today through some Legos.

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Why I Need a Dog

Sometimes I imagine a conversation between the Father and Jesus that went like this:

Father: I think we should give Gina a dog.
Jesus: I don’t think she would like that. I think she would find it disruptive.
Father: Exactly.
Jesus: Oh, this is going to be fun.

Oh yes, she’s been disruptive. She’s required countless hours of training, walking, feeding. She has woken me at 4 am many times to throw up whatever it was she indiscriminately ate on the street the day before. Always 4 am.

We have shelled out crazy dollars to fly her around the world and attempt to diagnose various mysterious illnesses she seems to have. We have lived out the cliche of “everyone in the family wants a dog, but mom ends up taking care of her.”

And at the end of the day, I need it.

I need a dog to remind me that I am not as important as I think I am, and neither are the tasks from which she takes me.

I need a dog to slow me down, make me take walks around the neighborhood, go outside early in the morning and breathe.

I need a dog to show me how to love people well – to always greet them at the door like they’re the best thing that’s happened today, to stay close to them wherever they go, to depend on them for what you need.

I need a dog who burps in my face, and sticks her tongue out at me, and runs around like a Tasmanian devil, to make me laugh when I least expect it.

Disruptive? Yes. Fun? Absolutely. Just what I need? Yep.

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The Good Life

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The world would have us think that a good life is a “significant” one. It is one in which you have bigger, better, more; you have some combination of fame and fortune.

I believe God would differ.

And I agree with Him, especially after reflecting on the life of my grandmother.

The night before her funeral last Saturday, we sat around before the wake and shared stories of my grandma, what she was like.

What emerged was a picture of a woman of integrity, a woman driven by her values and faith, who knew hard work, resourcefulness, and discipline, and intentionally passed them down to her children. She accepted what God gave her. She poured herself out for those around her. She took joy in little things.

My grandparents lived a small life in the eyes of the world. They lived their whole lives in a farming community so tiny it doesn’t even have its own grocery store. Not many knew them, not many outside our family will remember them.

But they lived in a way that I wish more people would imitate – humbly, faithfully, honestly. I am humbled when I look at the way they lived, and I hope to live like they did. As I think about my word of the year – content – they are a model for me.

That’s how you live a good life.

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Better Things Ahead

This week has left me a little speechless. On top of the emotional roller coaster of starting our kids in school and Erik being gone, death came twice: a dear family friend, and my sweet grandma. The first was wholly unexpected, the kind of death where you say, “But I just saw him . . . but he just . . .” It’s stunning.

The second was a long time coming. My grandma was nearing 100 years old, and in recent years has been in a slow decline physically and mentally. This last week she’d stopped eating and wasn’t responding much to people. She’s finally free. 

All this brings into sharp focus the frailty of life, the fact that at any moment things could change. So I find myself delighting more in things I could easily miss – the sound of my son’s voice from the back seat of the car, the new blossoms on our lemon tree, the sun rising through hues of pink, breath in my lungs. 

But it also makes me realize how far we are from Eden, how this world is nothing compared to the next. I think of our friend, who had a beautiful voice, and I imagine him singing praises to his God in a way he never has before. I think of my grandma whole, restored, full of joy. I think about how all that we enjoy and love here is but a poor substitute for what is to come. 

So let’s love well and be people of gratitude and wonder for the gifts we are given, but let us put our hope in eternity where all will be made new. 

“There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” C.S. Lewis

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Learning

The garbage disposal in my parents’ kitchen clogged two nights ago. This was inconvenient on a number of levels, such as: my parents were gone, my husband was gone, I am not good with tools, and oh yeah, after 13 years overseas I lack certain skills most people have gained by this point. In other words, I haven’t interacted with a garbage disposal since I was a teenager.

Spending most of my adult life outside of the States has left me strangely imbalanced in my abilities. Sure, I can help you bargain for something in Chinese and get the local price, but I did not know that potato peels shouldn’t go in a garbage disposal (but for the record, that wasn’t what caused the clogging). I may have mad chopstick skillz, but I don’t have a clue how to unclog a disposal, or when or how to call a plumber.

To make it more fun and challenging, one of the pipes below the bathroom simultaneously began dripping in the basement, and both dogs decided the moment needed to be punctuated by excessive barking. “This is exciting! It’s a big mess! You’re clueless!” I think is how it translated.

So I called some family friends, and was immediately cheered by their voices, especially the one that said, “Why don’t I come over and check on it?”

Half an hour, a messy kitchen floor and an unintentionally wet friend later (there was a lot of water trapped in there!) I had a working disposal again. Not only that, but I think if it happened again I might be able to fix it myself. We’re all going to pray it doesn’t come to that, but it encouraged me to think, “I might be sorely lacking in some basic adult skills for life in America, but they are not unlearnable.”

Which is good, because last night I got to practice, “What to do when your mini-fridge was set too cold and caused a can of soda to explode, bursting the door open.” Opportunities to be an adult abound!

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