Red Light, Green Light

Sunday~ October 4, 2009



The other day I was sitting at a stop light, fingers drumming the steering wheel, leg bouncing. The boys were being watched by a neighbor that I was anxious to relieve, and the light seemed extra long. Well, it actually was quite long because it's that light. The light that seems broken, leaving a person to sit in a row of thirty cars, only ten of which will be the lucky ones to make it through the next small chance at conquering the intersection.

The light finally turned green and I inched forward, small jerking movements, attempts at teleporting myself through the sea of bumpers in front of me, hoping hoping hoping c'mon c'mon c'mon I need to make it...

There were still ten cars ahead of me when the light turned red again. UUUGH!

Just moments after we were beckoned to go, we were stopped again.

Well! Just kidding, I said to myself, sighing and settling in for some more wandering thoughts while staring at red. I shut down, zoned out, gave up. Fine, I'm never going to make it.

I laughed at my grumptified self a little then and started to think about how life is a lot like waiting at a stop light. How I'll be chomping at the bit to do something, to change something, to make something happen. I'll be motivated and ambitious and ready, tap-tap-tapping at the gas, revving my engine. I'll see just what I want on the horizon, my hopes will rise with the green light of a seemingly obvious answer, and then...

Yellow light.

Oh no, I'm not going to make it. Why are there so many people ahead of me? Why can't I be up there with them? I need to go now!

Anxiety. Impatience. Discontent.

Red light.


I thought about this again today as I drove the two hours back from my parent's house. We weren't stuck in traffic, we were on the freeway, moving along without a hitch. I thought about how often that's the case in my life, this fast moving pace filled with only small problems like a sticky steering wheel and the annoyance of stopping for gas.

But I still have a tendency to get focused on the times I'm given the signal to wait. I shut down, zone out, give up. So quickly.

He's not sleeping through the night (whine stomp) When will I ever have time for me (fingers drum the steering wheel) When in the world will they sleep past 6 in the morning, I'm so tired (leg bouncing let's go let's go let's go) Look! I think I saw God open a door! (concentrating hard to teleport myself through bumpers) I really want to move, WHY can't we sell our house? (more whining and stomping)

In those times, I'm only thinking about me, how I should be the first one to go when the light turns green, how I should never have to wait.

But today as I drove, though I may have learned the lesson a thousand times, it hit me full force...

There are drivers around me who are truly suffering, they are stuck in a line of traffic much longer than thirty cars at a light that never turns green. I have been in their shoes. I know how it feels, and I know what got me through the worst kind of traffic jams. Other drivers, ones who weren't so self-obsessed that they passed on the right and kept going. They were the kind of drivers that looked out for me, those were the people that got me through. Grace people.

Some of the hurting commuters are in my life and I love them, and now I want (and need) to pull up alongside them, get out of my car, and climb in their passenger seats. Or drive. Or sing. Or tell a funny story. Or just sit. Whatever they need, I want to do it. I want to do what has been done for me. Whatever the cost is to my valuable time, I want to be there, doing.

When I forget myself, I'm not irritated by things like traffic lights. I'm much lighter, with less nail biting and leg bouncing. Suddenly, all those distant open doors and hopes off on the horizon are right there with me, in a much better form than I'd imagined.

It's good, getting what you needed instead of what you thought you wanted, because you gave of yourself.

Green light.


(photos courtesy of flickr)

I'm going to have to hug her...

Amidst the overstuffed boxes of memories sat a stack of notebooks, the kind I started to use as journals or for school and then somehow quit. The first couple of pages were scrawled with words I can't remember writing, and then nothing, page after page of empty.

I set them aside and continued to pour over things I've kept over the years. I knew I was taking a risk, leafing through notes from a first love, scanning cards and letters from family and friends, staring long at pictures of a girl I hardly know, and yet know all too well.

With a pit in my stomach and a lump in my throat I asked myself why walking down memory lane is so painful for me. I realize that traumatizing things did happen in my more youthful years, some brought on by me and some brought on me. But it seems like other people can look back and say Water under the bridge, no big deal, I was young and that's over now. Live and learn. Move on.

Not me. Starting at a young age, I did take a whole lot of detours, creating pot holes of pain all over my memory lane, and I haven't really been able to let it go even though I know it all serves it's purpose in making me...me. And I'm okay with me...now. Mostly.

But it's still as if I made a choice to attach my past to my ankle and drag it around as some sort of punishment. Which ironically, leaves me living in many of the same behaviors that bring me that feeling in the pit of my stomach, the one that seems so big, I'm terrified it won't ever go away, that pit that leaves me depressed and impatient and distant.

Because it's attached to my leg, the past always seems very close, pulling me from the here and now and leaving me back there, somewhere very lonely, since everyone else seems to have left it all behind, moved on...grown up.

Here I am, 34 years old, stomping my foot and begging God to work some kind of miracle in me, one that would change me, making me more peaceful and less moody, more joyful and less melancholy. Like yesterday, after a particularly difficult road trip with the boys in which I totally lost my cool, I actually resorted to begging God to hurry up and zap me, change me with that instant miracle I've been waiting on my whole life. But He didn't.

(What He did choose to do that very moment was to paint a rainbow across the sky. That was nice, and it did bring me some tears of relief, thinking on how He does still keep promises, but I still wanted to be zapped.) (Just saying.)

Then today I talked with a friend who could be me if we were allowed to share the same body. I told her about the notebooks, the ones filled with things I feel like I'm still saying all these years later, and the ones that are mostly empty. I joked about how those notebooks are a great analogy for my life. How I've wasted so many chapters on what seems like nothing and how it makes it feel like I'm never going to just get over it and change already.

To which she said, "I want to shake that old me. I want to slap her."

ME TOO. (not her, me.)

That's when we both got it at the same time.

I want to be able to say that if I could go back in time, I would hug me. I would forgive me. I would somehow love me no matter what I was doing.

I haven't been giving her that grace.

One thing I know for sure is that God loved me despite all of it, and He still loves me now.

Instead of doing the same, I've looked back in disgust, shaking my head and feeling a whole lot of shame, whether I think I've worked through it or not.

Being hard on yourself for things you cannot change is just as much a waste of time as not forgiving others.

Then my friend said, "I think this is more about love than it is about change."
The change will come with love. Love is a change magnet. Like a rainbow to the rain.

We joked then about how we're not quite ready to hug our former selves.

"Maybe tomorrow," she said. "For today, let's just go with a high five."

Yeah, I guess that's a good place to start, better than a slap or a kick anyway.

Perhaps the next time I sit down with the old notebooks, instead of cringing, hating that young me for what she did or what she said or what she didn't do, I will look at her differently, forgive her, and then leave the pages behind. I hope so. I'd like to love her so she can stop effecting my present.

That would be just the miracle I'm looking for, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to hug her first.


(If you would like to read another redemptive story brought on by the notebooks from my past, I wrote more about them here.)

My Part

Miles called me back to his bedroom.

"I'm scared."

"I'm right in the next room, what are you scared about?"

"Remember that guy with the slurpy tongue? That big guy who ate up people by slurping them in the cave?"

"No, I don't remember that. I don't know what you're talking about, but if you feel scared, why don't you talk to God about it, ask Him to take those thoughts away so you can sleep."

A few minutes later, I'm back to sorting through piles and piles of paperwork, and from the monitor I hear, "GOD, GIVE ME A CHANCE HERE AND MAKE.ME.STOP.THINKING.THAT. UUUGGGHHHH!"

I feel a tinge of recognition, a pain in my heart. I can relate to his frustration and fear.

Moments after that, he's calling me back to his room again. He tells me (with his exasperated-I'm-trying-to-sound-like-a-grown-up-voice) that God is not listening to him. He says God won't take away the scary thoughts.

Then the words just poured from me and I found myself standing there talking to my boy and myself about something very important.

"You have to do your part, Miles."

I went on and attempted to explain that God can give him the strength, but he needs to make a choice to think about something else too. He needs to decide to think a different way, like maybe about Curious George, something good or funny.

Oh, how I too want a magic wand experience with God. World peace - Pazow! An end to world hunger - Whamo! Healing for the sick- Kaboom! Overcoming my own demons - DONE! Patience and peace with a touch of a zen-like state - YOU GOT IT! BOOM! Money tree - IT'S YOURS!

Maybe it works that way sometimes, and I'm sure that's awfully nice. But for the most part, I think it's a two-way street. To be honest, most of the time I wish it were not. I don't want to have to do anything but believe. I want to sit back and watch goodness come from my wanting of it.

Then I remember what would be lacking.

If God always responded with immediate relief, the relationship and refinement that comes with doing my part would disappear. When I listen, when I pick myself up and do what I know I need to do, I finally take a good look at those purposes.

What we're working on here, together, is my heart.

I haven't been doing that lately. I'm standing in doorways and preaching to my child, but then on the other side of the wall I am fists tight and a stomping foot. I am shouting, "GOD, GIVE ME A CHANCE HERE AND MAKE.ME.STOP.THINKING.THAT. UUUGGGHHHH!"

I see the child that I am standing there, and I know I've got work to do. I just don't really feel like doing my part.

What amazes me is that my heart continues to grow and change despite myself, ever so very slowly, even when I don't want to try.

Grace.

Miles somehow accepted my advice without an argument or a sound. He was sitting up, shoulders slumped in the dark and after hearing what he needed to do, he let himself fall back to his pillow. To try again. To rest.

Sometimes that's all we can do.

Inspiration

I want to be more like Sara Groves when I grow up...

I included the first two snippits below because of the conversation we've had in recent months about the validity of the Bible. I just really like what Sara has to say about that:

And lastly, one of my favorite Sara songs...I love the message of this song, the way it reminds me that if I see pain in this world (which of course I WILL), I want to be moved to action. Showing the love of God is really what it's all about...

The Spaces

Mindy Smith sings the hauntingly beautiful song below. (She also sings a mean "Jolene" with Dolly Parton. Just sayin') I thought about this song (not Jolene, the one below) during a discussion about the book The Shack recently. Someone mentioned that they loved the part when the character portraying Jesus in the book tells Mack, the main character, that he didn't leave his daughter alone when she was kidnapped. Mack had a lot of hard questions about why God would allow this to happen, thinking that his daughter was simply abandoned by the God that created her. Then Jesus says something about it not working that way, that he's always with us, even in the worst of things. He says, "I was with Missy in that truck."

"Worry not my daughters. Worry not my sons. "


We can only get so far when we ask the hard questions in this life. There's nothing wrong with seeking the answers, but the parts that don't quite make sense to us are the very spaces we are asked to have faith. If we believe the part about God's constant prescence and love, it's like we've set a magnet in one of our spaces, one that pulls our faith to it with it's strength and settles in with peace. So I love this line -

"In Heaven, we will wait for your arrival. In Heaven, you will finally understand."

We are loved.

Even for a duck

After a long day of fun in the sun, playing ball, flying a kite and grilling out, we turned on to our quiet street, a load of happy sun-kissed people, worn and ready for baths and bed. But in the shade of a tall tree, we noticed two ducks sitting right on the street. We unloaded ourselves and crossed the tar, hoping to get the Mallard and his wife to stand and rush, inadvertently removing themselves from the real danger of a vehicle tire.

The male stood and led the way, drawing his lady to a nearby tree, hopping up and over the curb to reach a spot to hide behind the trunk. Then we saw it, the way she was walking, one leg flinching with the effort. She was injured, slow, tired. She didn't panic as birds do. She seemed unconcerned, no energy left to fight her fear.

So we said things like "Oh look, she's hurt." And we watched her limp slowly over the curb, struggling to lift herself.

My heart was breaking, even for a hurting bird, watching her pain and wishing I could end it. I was biting back tears and trying to answer all of the three year old questions coming my way. Her end was very near, I could see that. My controlling tendencies started to hop around in my head and heart. For a moment, I tried to think of a way to fix the situation. Then I started to think about what our pastor had said that morning, about the inevitable pain of life. He said it like it is, "Your life will never be void of suffering. Never. That's just LIFE." Then he talked about how it's not so much about the suffering itself, it's about whether or not we have the faith to believe in greater purposes. Do we truly believe that God does not just leave us in our pain, does not strike us down with ailments and death with a big stick, but that He takes all of it and works it together for good? That pain is an inevitable result not of God's will, but of a world that fell away from Him? That He will rescue us at times, and not at others, according to the very best bigger picture that only He can see? That kind of trust is terrifying.

It won't stop the pain, it will simply bring hope in place of despair.

Asher watched the duck so closely, without a sound for the longest time. Until suddenly, a guttural cry came from him, a heart-piercing and loud, "OOOOH, ooowie....OOOH." There was so much sadness in his sound, buried in layers of empathy. Our friend who was with us, watched him and let out a soft, "Wow." Yes. That boy knows pain. And so, he loves any creature deeply enough to feel theirs with them. I suppose that's what we're to do with all this suffering. Love, feel for each other, lifting the burden even just a little, in a moment on the street as we observe, feeling helpless.

Miles stepped closer, carefully inching his way toward the ducks like a curious moth to an intriguing flame, firing off questions about what happened, why is her leg like that, and did we run her over when we drove by? "No, honey. No. She was like this before we came along, we didn't do it." He thought about it for a while and then he said, "God doesn't like it that the duck is hurting."

No, I don't think God does like it even one bit. And knowing that He doesn't somehow lifts the fear of the inevitable suffering in our future. If He doesn't like pain, He groans as Asher did, because He too knows pain, and I know that when He cries out, something happens. Peace. Mercy. Grace. Love.

Asher's groans, my tears, and Miles' questions serve their purpose in reaching the ears of a God who I believe cares deeply. Our cries are love. He is love. Love even for a Mallard duck, limping on a quiet street. How much greater is our love for each other, all held together by His love for us? When we enter each other's pain, we're showing a level of trust that we may not have even known was there. And it's good.

So, why did God plant the tree?

This is cross-posted at The Midnight Cafe.

The question that stuck with me after my most recent meeting with my Bible study group was this: Why did God put the tree in the garden in the first place? I mean, ultimately, the tree represents the ability of people to choose their own destruction. If God did not give people the ability to choose, life would still be perfect in the garden of Eden. Perfect. Instead, the "gift" of free choice means that we live in a world where murder, rape, hunger, disease, and greed exist right alongside compassion, generosity, abundance, health, and joy. Love crashes and shatters against evil every day. Perfection does not exist.

So, why?

The best answer that I know of is that God wanted us to CHOOSE. God wants us to freely choose relationship with God, which means that there has to be another choice. Otherwise we are robots, creatures who worship God because that's what we were created to do, but not because we choose God. And, honestly, I believe that God wants to be chosen. God doesn't desire relationship with beings who have no choice.

God gave us the dignity of being free. God grants us the respect of autonomous beings.

I mentioned (in my Bible study) that it's a little like being parents. We could, potentially, protect our children from risk (and also choice and freedom) for much of their lives, maybe even their whole lives if we did a good enough job of isolating them. But then who would our children be? We've all heard of people who have been so isolated they can hardly function, and they certainly cannot think for themselves. They have no personality, no individual personhood.

Having read a fair amount about different types of parenting, I know that kids who are raised by more strict parents, especially strict conservative Christian parents may be less likely to endure a tumultuous adolescence, but they are also less creative, less adventurous, and less engaging than their peers who have been allowed more freedom...including the freedom to make some stupid choices.

Another wise parent in the Bible study group responded that, of course, she allows her son some choices...but she wouldn't let him set himself on fire and dance naked on the kitchen table. ;) In other words, she limits his choices to protect his life.

It seems that God didn't do that. God put that tree right there in the garden and did not prevent people from eating the fruit that would lead to destruction...to unspeakable pain and evil.

I'm sorry to admit that I became swallowed up in my own thoughts after that and lost the discussion, and by the time I returned the topic had moved on (we were discussing The Shack, and there's plenty there to talk about).

Here's what I was thinking, though. It's true that while my children are young, I protect them from the serious choices, choices that could mean the difference between life and death. I don't let Mane run out into the street or set herself on fire. But, very recently, I've been faced with the fact that I cannot do that with Vespera. I cannot protect her from every choice that has the potential to harm her.

If I remove her choice, her freedom, even in cases where her life could be in danger, I destroy our relationship. I'm willing to beg, plead, and persuade when I think she's making an unwise choice. But if I cross over the line into removing her freedom, I open a chasm between us. We can talk, negotiate, and argue...unless I take away her freedom. Then I've shut down communication, broken the lines, built a wall, or whatever else you want to call it. And we are left with a quiet, empty chasm between us.

And God is a God of relationship, a God who wants to communicate with us, even if it's to argue and persuade. There's simply nothing to say if we don't have any choices. So, God gave us choices to keep our relationship.

I've been trying to post this for 3 days and keep changing it. So, go easy on me. I'd love a discussion if ya'll have anything to say, ask, or argue.