Captain’s log – week 9:

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I have realized that for this (chronicling of the Binky and the Bonzo) to work, I am going to need some recording equipment.  These two fire off a conversation at mach speed!  I can hardly keep up!

I also realized that the girls are starting to settle in to the routine of high school.  This past week there were actually moments of silence in the car.  However my favorite part of the week was from Tuesday (October 26th), here are my notes from that day:

The B&B were fighting over me today.  First Binky disowned me (I cannot recall why) and then Bonzo claimed ownership of me and then they “fought” over owning me.  Someone was actually laying fingers on me as representation of ownership.  I think it was Bonzo.  I was feeling the love!  At one point Binky said “What!?! You wanna take this outside? Tuck and roll!  Tuck and roll!

note to reader: we were in a moving vehicle

at one point, the laughter became a threat to urinary continence – good thing we were close to the school!

Makes Me Think

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I subscribe to a blog called “Makes Me Think” – sometimes I wonder if people are just making stuff up but it is an interesting and sometimes heartwarming, sometimes heart-wrenching but quick read.  This was on there today and it bothered me.

” Today, when I told them the truth, my parents stopped loving me for being me.”  ~ by lost

The comments section just did not seem the place to respond to this but I am betting that many kids have felt this way and I simply wanted to respond as a parent.   So here it goes:

Dear “lost”,

I am so sorry you feel that way.  I can only imagine your pain.  As a parent, I would like to give a possible explanation of what you may have perceived as an end to your parents love.  It could simply be that they are mourning a loss.   You said that “when I told them the truth” which means that until that moment they had been experiencing something that was not true.  Maybe, an image of their child that was false?  So, in that moment of truth…they experienced a loss.  They need some time to grieve that loss.  When you exposed your truth, you likely were seeking acceptance.  I ask you to give them time.  Acceptance does not mean that they have to understand, agree with or celebrate your truth.  It means that it is not their responsibility to decide upon it.  Now they may need some time to get there and are now trying to sort through what the “truth” is.  You did not decide overnight to expose your truth, you likely took time to decide. Allow them THEIR time to absorb it.  I would like to share with you something that I have had to say to my own child when I have reacted poorly to something:

“Just remember that I am human too, and I mess up.  I react to my emotions.  My reactions do not determine your value and worth nor are they a measurement for my love for you.”


The Chronicles of Binky and Bonzo

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Every morning and most afternoons I have the privlege of transporting a couple of teenage girls to high school.  For the purpose of this blog, I will refer to them lovingly as Binky and Bonzo.  Back in the day, I used to blog the occasional CRAZINESS that was my drive time with Breanna (see posts under the category of Driving Miss Crazy).  I don’t know what this will look like.  I can only tell you that having two teen girls in the car is somewhat different than having one teen girl in the car.

Their personalities are different.  Not just from that of Miss Crazy but also from that of each other.  It creates some interesting, funny, intense, and odd conversation and also the occasional bickering match.  Always fascinating, occasionally frustrating.  Under it all, they love each other.    Over it all – THEY SING VERY LOUDLY and are convinced that Katy Perry is stalking them (not really, it is just that every time they get in the car, one of her songs comes on).

Topics in the past have included:

  • What to wear / what not to wear
  • The best thing of the day / the worst thing of the day
  • Waking up is awful
  • Boys
  • The upcoming <event of the day, week, or month>
  • Homework
  • Family
  • Friends
  • Group Therapy (U93 has this every Monday – I have called in and given my two cents)

For example:  When asked last week, how their day went…Bonzo stated “Disturbing” and when asked what it was she answered that she could not tell me because she was told something in confidence.  So, conversation continued to be cryptic and became at the least very concerning.  They were questioning whether or not something was even legal.  So I said…”Listen, you do not have to give me names just tell me what it is and I will let you know if it is legal or not.”

For the sake of privacy of this person, I will only tell you that it was ILLEGAL what this person had done and so I had to explain what it was and why it was illegal.  Teaching moments like this are what every parents dreams are made of.

Car rides with teens…never what you expect them to be.

Inaction. Really?

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You know, sometimes it just sucks being human.  So limited in our abilities compared to the One we were made to be the image of and yet we attempt to make ourselves responsible for things beyond our limitations.   (Can you tell that I am talking about myself yet?)

It is funny when you discover your weaknesses.  I found that I am capable of handling many things and I don’t generally take criticism as anything more than constructive and rarely do I take things personally.  However, in the face of the possibility that I have CAUSED stress or hurt…IT WRECKS ME.

I think it funny that I am in the middle of two things at church, a series called How To Wreck Your Life and a spiritual growth group based on a book The Me I Want To Be.   I have learned that I have what is called a Spiritual Inhibitor and mine apparently is INACTION.  I was not seeing it and neither did anyone I asked.  So I was trying to see where that plays out in my life and asked God to show me.  I realized that deep down, I know that it is a part of me and I actually OVERCOMPENSATE by actually RUSHING to action for fear of not acting.  I don’t like having weaknesses.  I tend to try to flip them.  Sometimes this does not turn out very well.  In speech or in action.  When pressed, I might just rush THROUGH something that I should have taken more time THINKING about for fear of overthinking it and then become unsure and then ignore it and do nothing.

Sometimes an immediate response may not necessarily be the best one.  I know that my intentions are good, but my actions or words don’t match them.

Then, I beat myself up about it.

I am growing here people, I am growing.  Apparently when I asked God to show me where my “spritual inhibitor” played out in my life…he provided a week in which I had to deal with it a couple of times.  YAY ME!

Dear God,

I think I have learned what you wanted me to see.  Thank you for answering my prayer.  Would it be possible to end the lesson here?

In Jesus name, Amen!

Rope Calls and Relationships

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I enjoy a good analogy, especially when it is bundled with learning about something new like…rock climbing.  Of course leave it to Mark Beeson to create such an opportunity at SWAT (our weekly staff meeting: Staff Working As Team)

So, today Mark drew an image of a rock climber on the side of a rock face and another person on top of the rock/cliff – whatever and explained that part of rock climbing safely includes certain “calls” and to understand the rest of my post you might want to know the definition of the word “belay” that is:  to turn a rope round an object or person in order to secure it or him. (apparently belaying can be done from the cliff top or the ground with an anchor properly placed in the the top of the rock)

So, before a climber begins to climb, they call to the person that is belaying:

“On Belay!” and then wait for the response of

 “Belay On!”

Then they call out

“Climbing!” and wait for the response of

“Climb!” (or I have also found “Climb On!”)

And thus begin the process of working their way up the rock.  The person belaying is constantly pulling up the slack of the rope.  If in the event the climber feels himself falling he is supposed to call out:

“Falling!”

[so, here is the POINT of the message and what I loved about Mark’s analogy]

If you’re not TIGHT with the one that is holding you, meaning that if there is alot of slack in the rope and they are oblivious to your climb, then you are going to fall long and fall hard.  But if you’re tight, you only fall 3 inches, the rope stretches six and you bounce a bit but you are okay and you can continue climbing.

Here is where I went with the analogy:

Look at that through your Relationships filter. 

Are you “tight” with your friends?

Married people, are you “tight” with your spouse?

Kids are you “tight” with your parents, your  friends?

Are you “tight” with your church community?

Are you “tight” with Christ?

Whoever it is that you believe you are connected to, that you believe will notice when you start falling (even if you don’t have the clear thought of calling out the word “FALLING!”), are you “tight” enough for them to notice when it happens or did you start climbing up a rock that they were unaware of ? 

If the answer to that last question was “yes”, it’s not too late to get “tight” – there is  one rope call that Mark Beeson left off, actually there are several but, the one  you can call up to have someone pull up all of the slack and hold on because a possible fall is anticipated:

“Tension!” 

You have to stay connected, you have to call out.  You.

 “LORD, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”  “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.  But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “LORD, save me!”  Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

~Matthew 14:28-31 (NIV)

I drank the Kool-Aid…

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and moved my blog to WordPress.   I feel so grown up!  Sort of like when I gave up MySpace and switched to Facebook entirely.  This is where all the MATURE people blog.  Right?  Maybe not.  I simply know that I could not get the features and appearance over at my OTHER location that I can here. 

Now that I have moved into my new home…I expect gifts.

I had another dream

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I had a dream and it was…scary.
In my dream I was H.O.T. – as I am in all my dreams, but I digress. That was not the scary part. In my dream it was just another Manic Monday (whooa ohhh… Monday is group night at GCC you know) and I was sitting at my desk at the church and my Director extraordinaire came in and told/asked me to prepare a curriculum for a new class that I would be teaching THAT NIGHT. Yes, that was the scary part boys and girls. I WOULD BE TEACHING!
The subject: Death.
“Finding hope in death” to be exact.
Like a good soldier, I did not blink an eye at the thought of researching and coming up with material for a class that would begin in less than 8 hours. My dream self felt VERY confident about being able to provide material for this class. What my dream self was NOT prepared for was…..drumroll please…. PRESENTING THE MATERIAL TO A ROOM FULL OF MIDDLESCHOOLERS! Yeah, you read that right.
The funny thing is…ever since I woke up, I have still been working on my “curriculum” as if it were an actual assignment.

Surrender….Not just a Cheap Trick song.

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So, this is a big share for me. I have alluded a few times about a difficult relationship and my failed attempts at reconcilliation. Today I had a big DING! go off in my head. (again?) I had a few little dings pinging around here and there about it but today the big DING! hit me.

Dang! I AM a human being!

You see, my first mistake has been the fact that I believed that the descriptive word “difficult” or “strained” or “bad” that I put in front of the word “relationship” was a SHARED belief between me and the other party.

My second mistake…maybe there is no heirarchy or order of mistakes…my OTHER mistake was my timing in my efforts to “repair” or “reconcile” this relationship. Just because I thought the timing seemed appropriate does not mean that it WAS APPROPRIATE for that other person. Looking back at all this, that person has every reason to think, say, believe that I am a stark raving LUNATIC. That person did not know that I had been having “nudges” I believed were urging me to move toward “fixing” the relationship. For all I know, that person was able to put the past in the past and I am digging up corpses. To that person I look like an insane mechanic that is changing the oil on a car that just had it’s oil changed and in the process replaces oil with transmission fluid and therefore creates a NEW (and/or worse) problem.

My big DING! though…this is what hit me…maybe all this time, these “nudges” I was feeling were more about NOT taking action. These nudges were more about me realizing that this is beyond MY control and that I should turn it over to GOD and pray….”Search me O God”…SURRENDER. This is bigger than me. I do not have the power to change anything or anyone other than ME.

Dang it.

(Trite cliche: Hindsight is 20/20.) Sometimes in my efforts to “be (or do) better” I need to slow down and examine the possible outcomes. (Glib response: Haste makes waste)

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” ~ Psalm 139:23-24 (NIV)

“Investigate my life, O God,

find out everything about me;

Cross-examine and test me,

get a clear picture of what I’m about;

See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong-

then guide me on the road to eternal life.”

~ Psalm 139:23-24 (MSG)

Three small words. One huge statement.

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“I’ll go sleep in the woods with this dog before I give it away to a shelter.”

(this comment delivered deadpan)

…from a gentleman going from A-Z under the heading of “churches” in the phone book. He quit drugs 2 years ago and is now suffering from cardiac sudden death syndrome and is awaiting his disability hearing. He and his wife of 17 years are facing eviction next week and his vehicle (a $150 beater that someone gave him) was totalled this past week. They have no income. He has nothing of value except the “$3000 dog” that someone gave him.

We (Granger Community Church) is not in a place to solve his problem and part of my job as Care Coordinator – with the hope of finding help and the ability to resource them – is sometimes asking hard questions. After hitting many brick walls, it occasionally (more often these days) comes to the point where I have to ask the hardest ones:

“Do you have a place to go if you lose your home? Family, friends?”

I try to explain the tough reality that he may need to find a shelter.

Many people divert attention to the care of their pets. They love them and can’t imagine sending them to the humane society where they could be euthanized or to a refuge organization where they will never get them back.

I have pets. I love them. If it came to it, would I give them up and take my family to a shelter?

At this point, he is trying to hold on to something, another living creature, for comfort when everything else is about to be lost.

I have never been in that place. I don’t know the turmoil in the heart and mind of a person in this situation that causes this to be a tough decision.

It’s hard being the voice of reality sometimes. It rips at my heart to have to tell someone that I can’t help them. The only thing I can do is pray. This situation is beyond me.

I am seeing an increase in calls for assistance and this one made my heart hurt. I know, it could have been someone trying to “scam” the church. But I choose not to be jaded and err on the side of mercy.

So often people wait until the situation is past the point of repair before seeking help. Three small words, so hard to speak.

“I need help.”

I had a dream

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I had a dream….and it was silly.
In my dream, I was at my perfect weight and looking H.O.T. As I do in all of my dreams. They are MY dreams right? In this one, I was dating James VanderBeek (yeah, that guy from Dawson’s Creek or more recently Mercy. In my dream, it was the Mercy version of him). It must have been Christmastime because he gave me a gift. It was a necklace with the initial D in diamonds. So, we spent my dream time visiting various people in his family and just random things weird things happened but what stuck out is one set of twin boys around the age of 3 or 4 followed us around for a little bit and as we were parting ways from them they made a point of each telling me “I’m 3rd” and the other said “I’m 4th” and James explained it meaning that in the heirarchy of favoritism within their family, that is the place that they hold. James proceded to tell me that he is first. Go figure. So, we are heading to the next family member and mind you, we are all about PDAs in this dream. (Holding hands, public smooching kind of stuff.) So, my dream self was a bit confused when James kind of wanted to be rid of me while visiting his father. His bedridden father. He actually told me, “why don’t you go get your haircut while I am visiting with Dad” and when I asked him why, he told me “your hair is pretty robust” he apparently found it very important that I get my hair cut because he offered to cut it himself if I did not want to go have it done by someone. Oh, and he was NOT going to pay for the cutting of my robust hair. In my dream, I was alright with these things. I decided to go get my haircut. Pay for it myself – even though I was perfectly happy with my robust hair. Not to mention, my dream self was pretty confused as to why he wanted to get rid of me after what seemed to be a great day…
…and then I woke up. Pi$$ED! Dude, at no time in my life would I EVER date someone as self-absorbed as he was in my dream. Not to mention, manipulative and controlling. PLEASE!
So anyway….just had share.