Author: jdunderwood

Manna and character

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My oldest is now 12!!! I can’t believe it. Here she is cutting her cake while a very anxious Jake looks on.

Some roles and jobs/careers are so much a part of our lives that we have a hard time knowing what we would be like without them. Would we be different people? Yesterday I wondered what I would be like if I’d never had my children. (I have to admit that I sometimes ask this question and think, “I’d be more peaceful!”)

Maybe I would be more peaceful, but I think I would also be less flexible, more uptight, more serious in a not-good way. I’d be less aware of my own faults, less willing to seize joy in the unexpected, and less willing to expose my messiness (literal and figurative) to others.

God has given me an amazing gift for my character in the form of my children.

In any role that is so much a part of us that we can’t imagine life without it, it can be easy to forget that this role is a gift, not just a gift for others or a gift that brings enjoyment to US, but a gift that is meant to shape us and remind us.

When the Israelites were in the wilderness, gathering manna morning after morning (except on the Sabbath), they forgot that the manna was a gift. They forgot that it was the very thing that kept them alive. They forgot that the manna was teaching them some incredibly important principles:

  1. To trust God in the moment. He was already providing direction with the pillar of cloud/fire. Now He was taking it to an even deeper level and reminding them that even their daily food was a gift from His hand. Without Him, they would not survive, but He had promised to provide for them—and that promise applied to even the food they ate.
  2. To believe that God will continue to provide. The Israelites tried to do what we ALL do when we’re given a gift: they tried to hold onto it, to hoard it. They thought of it as THEIRS. But hoarding the manna didn’t work. The extra had worms the very next morning. It stunk!
  3. To be grateful, to remember it’s a gift and not take it for granted—or worse, to complain about it. God told Moses to preserve some manna in a jar. “’Let … it be kept throughout your generations, so that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.’” Ex. 16:32.
  4.  To be creative with what God gave them. He told them they could bake or boil, even shape it into cakes. Maybe some of the Israelite men even figured out how to grill it! God knows our tastebuds. (In Deuteronomy 14:26 God talks about celebrating the tithe to the Lord. He tells the people to enjoy “whatever [their] appetite craves.”) The manna was good to the taste already, but God gave them freedom to create other flavors with it.

That certainly isn’t an exhaustive list, but I can learn a lot from just these four things. After gathering manna for years upon years, the Israelites got pretty used to it. They thought of it simply as a job they had to do every day. It gave them food. It had to be done, blah, blah, blah.

Sometimes I have the same attitude toward my roles—my gifts. Being a wife, mother, writer, tutor, friend, neighbor… These are GIFTS to me, and with each gift come lessons that are meant to make me more and more like Christ.

Lord, help me to trust You in each moment for all my roles. Help me to trust that You will never leave me on my own to accomplish the work that You’ve called me to do. Help me to be grateful for it, and help me, please, to be creative in it, to take great JOY in it. And, finally, Lord, may I be shaped through it to look more like You.

“Thank You,” and, “help, please”

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End of day. I climb into Em’s loft for our almost-nightly time of talk and prayer. She scoots over her pillow, and my head sinks next to hers. We are both quiet. My eyelids droop. Sleep beckons. I fight back.

“Want me to pray?”

“M-hm.”

“Lord…”

I am usually a long pray-er, but tonight words seem heavy. My tired brain struggles to use them well enough to express the thoughts swirling in my mind. Thinking them is enough work for this moment late in the day.

Finally I say, “Thank You.”

And then, “Help, please.”

Em is not asleep, but she seems content.

And I am, too.

Because my wise God knows my thoughts and intercedes for me, and, though we clearly need the eloquence of phrases and clauses (there are 150 Psalms, after all), sometimes just a few words will do.

And tonight, “thank you” and “help, please” are enough.

A dusty morning

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I wrote this post yesterday, but I’m getting the same look today–right away! And I’m not even in the house yet!

I read this quote from Jesus Calling this morning: “Living in My presence means living in two realms simultaneously: the visible world and unseen, eternal reality. I have equipped you to stay conscious of Me while walking along dusty, earthbound paths.”

So far, today has been decidedly dusty.

More accurately, I should write that I am dusty today. It’s a “free” day for me, which in actuality means it’s anything but. It means that I return from taking the kids to school and stare at the hundreds of things that need to be done in my house (both general maintenance/cleaning and the still-moving-in tasks that never were accomplished during this crazy summer—seriously, I still have pictures leaning against the walls of the living room and boxes of stuff in the garage). I have no appointments and no writing deadlines that are due TODAY and, and the fact that I had a big deadline yesterday means that I have left even more things undone (because I would ALWAYS rather write than do housework, no matter how tedious the writing task is).

So today my brain is frazzled. I flit: clean the half bath, fill the soap dispenser, think, “would the sheer curtains make the front room less gloomy feeling?” I try them. Nope, they don’t even fit on the rods—and I like the rods. I get suddenly depressed about decorating my house. I just want it done—and that reminds me of the 8th grade teacher I taught with years ago who drilled her students so diligently on the difference between “done” and “finished” (chicken is “done,” tasks are “finished) that when her students came to my classroom they corrected me.

Em and I had a bit of a grumpy morning, so thoughts about that are also swirling. I’m tossing around the pros and cons of taking on a longer-term writing job possibility. Bits of prayer surface. “Lord, I am so unequal to any of these tasks. I’m not even sure what to do today, much less tomorrow or long term.” But praying and listening get swallowed up.

I am not just dust-y. I AM dust, floating, mis-directed by any small puff of air. I imagine Satan blowing me this way and that, aided by my own un-captured thoughts.

The dog begins following me around, reminding me with soulful eyes that I promised her a trip to the dog park where I have planned to have some quiet time and Bible study.

I put her off for awhile, find more tasks to do, more distractions. Finally, though, the look becomes pitiful, and I succumb, as much to the Holy Spirit as to the dog.

So here I am, sitting, letting it all out, hopefully silencing the talk in my own head and listening, be-ing.

I’ve got to walk in the dust, scuff my feet in it even, but I don’t have to BE it.

I’m posting this and checking e-mails and she’s hoping to be outside very soon! I need this kind of focus!

Incredibly worth it

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The four girls: from left, Kelly, Maddie, Judy, and Em. Judy and Kelly are sisters from China who are living with our family this year. We’re having SUCH a good time with them.

“The greatest problem in my country is that so few people know Christ, and it is hard for people to hear of Him. We are getting more and more self-centered as a culture, and our growing lack of concern for others is all related to that.”

I was reading the exit essays of our students at the Summer English Institute (a month-long academic camp for international students who are going into American high schools) that I taught at this summer. They had been asked to write about the “most important problem” their country faces, and I had read about overpopulation, pollution, unhealthy food, and lack of worldwide communication. But this essay, by a young man I’m calling “Isaiah,” made me catch my breath. It wasn’t just words. His heart was exposed on the page.

Later in the day I conducted his exit interview. Isaiah’s spoken English is not impressive. He still has to think carefully to find the right words, and his thoughtful nature makes him seem less fluent in speech than he actually is. But his answers to my questions were worth the wait. When I asked, “How would you improve SEI?” he suggested playing worship music during the students’ free time. “It would be good for our hearts,” he said.

“How are you feeling about going to your American school?”

“Excited,” he answered, but in his face there was something else.

“Do you miss home?”

He nodded, slowly. “I miss my father,” he said, in his deliberate way. “When I come home from school each day, he is waiting for me. He opens his arms,” and here Isaiah spread his own arms wide, “and he hugs me and tells me he loves me. Then we sit down and I tell him about my day.”

He looked down, at his hands that were now resting in his lap, and I was glad because tears were brimming in my eyes. Still looking down, he added, “My father is a good man.”

I got it together and finished the conversation, but, obviously, I haven’t forgotten his words.

He didn’t say what his father did for a living. He didn’t say what work accomplishments he’d made, or where he’d traveled, or how many languages he spoke.

He just said, “He is a good man,” and gave his reasons for that belief: that his father made time for him each day, that his dad said “I love you” every afternoon.

For Isaiah, THAT was enough.

And as I looked at Isaiah, I would say it was enough, too. If I ever meet his father this side of heaven, I would say, “You must be a good man, because the evidence in your son is so strong, and what he says about you is beautiful.”

I often fail to see this connection for myself, though. I get tired of the mundane of food prep and cleaning and organizing and the afternoon grind of driving here and ferrying there, and I want accolades and accomplishments instead.

Not long after I finished SEI, I took my four kids and one of our international daughters (the older one was at a school function) to volunteer at Feed My Starving Children (http://www.fmsc.org/). It’s a ministry that creates food packets (called Manna Packs) for third-world mission groups to pass out, and it uses volunteers to fill the packets. Before we began working, we watched a video that showed children growing strong with regular, nutritious food intake and mothers feeding spoons of rice mixture to their toddlers. It’s the kind of video that makes me get a bit romantic about wanting to be overseas or working more with relief efforts here, that makes me wonder what good I am actually doing right now (I know that is not the intent of the video-makers; it’s my own issue).

I wasn’t overwhelmed by these thoughts, but they simmered as all the volunteers were split into teams and trained to create the Manna Packs with chicken bullion, dried vegetables, soy nuggets, and rice. Jake (my 8-year-old) and I were put on a team with several strangers, and Jake was put in charge of soy (I nicknamed him “Soy Boy”). My job was to weigh the final product, adding or subtracting rice to get the right weight. We chanted a list to keep the kids in the group focused: “Chicken, veggies, soy, and rice; chicken, veggies, soy, and rice!” and I checked Jake’s face occasionally. About an hour into it, I could tell his blood sugar was dropping.  His attention strayed, and I had to remind him a few times: “Hey, soy boy, it’s your turn. Keep it up. You’re doing great!”

I, on the other hand, was uber-focused—remember, I was fueled by the video! At one point I even thought, “I could do this every day. It’s so worthwhile.” (Does anyone else have these ridiculously sappy, thoughts, or is it just me?). Thankfully, God gave me the grace in the same instant to actually recognize it and think, “You’re such a dork, Jen,” but then He brought an image into my mind. It was the picture of Isaiah at SEI, sitting across the table from me, holding up his arms as he talked about his father’s love for him.

And I looked over at “Soy Boy,” concentrating so hard on filling up his cup just exactly at the line with those soy nuggets, and I stole a glance at Patrick, busy, busy at the table just behind me, and I found Em and Maddie across the room, and Kelly on my right…

If they can say what Isaiah said, if they can know without a doubt that I love them because I myself am loved, if they blaze with love for Jesus themselves and carry it as a torch that shines to others—

Isn’t that incredibly worth all amounts of mundane effort?

Wouldn’t that alone be the “well done” from Jesus that I so long to hear?

Isaiah, I pray for you today, that this year spent away from your father would not weaken but would actually strengthen your relationship with him. I pray that your heart for your people would blaze, fueled by an ever-increasing understanding of Christ’s love for you.

And I thank you for reminding me how worthwhile the mundane truly is.

First day of school! Judy had already left with Dave for the Academy, but here are the five I take every day to the Grammar school. (I still can’t believe that they ALL go to school ALL day! 🙂 )

A good home-GOING

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This post is dedicated to my father-in-law, EJ Underwood, who has spent the last several years taking very loving care of Jenna Mae. In this picture he’s helping PJ. It’s a constant habit with this man.

My dad has always said that one of the great proofs to him of Christianity is the way believers in Christ die. As a family doctor for more than 50 years, he’s seen plenty of deaths. The ones who have been walking with Jesus, he says, look like they’re just taking the next step. There’s often a smile and a brightness of the face, like they caught a glimpse of Him with their heavenly eyes while they were still in their earthly bodies. Dave’s 98-year-old grandma, Jenna Mae, who went home on Tuesday, got just such a glimpse.

“Boys, I’m going home today.” That’s what she told the two pastors who visited her that afternoon. They’d come every day. She hadn’t said that before. “You are?” one of them said. She nodded and then asked if he could sing “In the Garden.” He started to, but couldn’t remember the words. “You sing it, Jenna.”

“And He walks with me, and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own, and the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.”

She didn’t get all the way through it. Tired, her memory slipping, she requested “Face to Face.”

“Face to face with Christ my Saviour, face to face—what will it be—when with rapture I behold Him, Jesus Christ who died for me?”

EJ was supported by our Nana (Peggy). Here she is–also with PJ!

A few minutes later Jenna Mae had her answer.

It was a good homegoing.

reminded of the family

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This morning I read an article titled “7 Worst International Aid Ideas” (http://matadornetwork.com/change/7-worst-international-aid-ideas/). I was catching up on the blog of a friend who lives and works in Uganda (http://grassyroadwanderingfeet.tumblr.com/), and she had it linked. The title hooked me.

Though I don’t wholeheartedly agree with all the author says, it’s a worthwhile read, and it reminded me of a book my husband read recently, When Helping Hurts (which has a Christian take on this issue).

Just after reading the article, I opened my computer journal and scrolled down to the bottom of it to begin writing. My cursor landed instead on something I wrote last October about creating family with our two international students (see below). For me, somehow, it connects with my swirling, always-developing thoughts about aid and service. I have  no expertise on international aid, but I’ve learned from experience that if giving ever feels easy, if it doesn’t touch and even skewer my heart some, then it’s probably been done wrong. It has probably done some hurt—if not to the receiver, then to the giver.

10/2/11

Take our family—with four children ranging in age from 5 to 11—and add two international girls, ages 15 and 17. Did I ever think it would be easy? No, not even once; in fact, at a host family meeting early this fall when they told us the that the “honeymoon phase” would last between 1-3 weeks, I thought, “I’m pretty sure I skipped that phase.”

But at that time I was thinking mostly of the extra work it would cause for me: more food (and kinds of food) to shop for, more mouths to feed, more schedules to keep track of, more, more, more. Okay, yes, I also knew from experience that if you don’t bond with people, it can make living with them in your house really awkward, but I was focused on the added load.

I didn’t really expect the emotional upheaval. It’s not easy helping two girls who are used to quiet, one- or two-child homes adjust to having three, loud, much younger “siblings.” It’s not easy explaining to those younger children that just because someone is afraid of dogs doesn’t mean that she hates our well-loved Chai. It’s not easy negotiating reconciliation between people whose definitions of “forgiveness” are literally worlds apart.

And it’s really easy to slip into withdrawal. We’ll just get by; we’ll co-exist; we’ll let them hang out in their room—a lot.

But then God intervenes. We hear more of their stories. Our hearts stretch. Okay, that’s enough, we think, but then God does it again. We care more; we want more; we think, “Maybe we can actually feel like a unit, a group that gets along.” Then God brings more tension, more involvement, more stretching of the hearts—a better way to put it would be that He’s actually adding new material. Suddenly we find ourselves saying, “We want you to feel like you are a real part of us. We want you to learn that we can get mad at each other, we can have conflict, we can mess up. It’s all right. We talk about these things; we share our frustrations; we ask for God’s help with the supernatural task of forgiveness and we move on. That’s what families do.”

Even as I write this, I gasp at the audacity of this: that a ragtag group of people could learn to act like a real family. But isn’t that what God calls His ragtag group of followers—drawn from every nation, every tribe, every socioeconomic group, and every level of “ability”? He calls us a family.

And I believe He is in the business of doing it on the very small level as well.

“A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
is God in his holy dwelling.
6 God sets the lonely in families,[c]
he leads out the prisoners with singing;” Psalm

Cloudy–that’s how I usually feel about things like international aid. Not only do I not know or understand enough, my heart’s pretty cloudy, too. I don’t really want to give of myself or “my” possessions. But thankfully, I don’t have to provide the light that breaks through the clouds. I took this pic in Montana. It makes me think of 2 Cor. 4:6: “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” I’m very thankful for that promise.

68

Free at last–into a free FALL

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I should be overjoyed. After a crazy summer, today is the first full school day for my kids—ALL my kids, even Patrick, our perennial preschooler.

I am home with no one but the dog.

And, with my husband’s full blessing, I am not working regularly this fall. No teaching, no weekly newspaper deadlines, no set work schedule other than the few hours of tutoring I’m doing each week.

But though I should be chanting, “Free at last, thank God almighty I’m free at last,” I’m singing instead, “I’m free, free-falling.” I’m strangely adrift without my old supports.

A month ago I was looking forward to this planned quiet without reservations, but in this first day of the plan’s reality, well… I’m struggling. None of this work brings in a regular paycheck, I’m thinking. When someone asks me, “So what do you DO?” I can’t say “I teach” or even “I write,” since I have no guarantee most of it will get published. “I’m a mom,” I’ll answer, and…

I know that being a mother is a calling, a capital-“C” calling (and feeding a family of eight is in itself a full-time job-aah!). But I’ve always been “mom AND…” And right now, in this day, I’m missing the “and.” I miss teaching. I miss the students and the classroom and fellow teachers. I even miss deadlines and editors and colleagues and an actual office where a listening ear is only on the other side of the wall.

I miss community.

That might be it more than anything.

I’m looking ahead to a semester of writing—a blessed gift from my God and my husband—but writing is solitary and in-my-head, and no one’s going to be around at 11 in the morning to tell me that, yes, that sentence I just re-wrote ten times IS good, and that what I’m doing IS worthwhile and valuable and I’m not just chasing a selfish and impossible dream.

This morning I dropped off the kids at school and ran errands: to the farmer’s market to get MORE food for this crew; to a hair-cutting friend for a trim; to the dollar store for last-minute school supplies for our high-schooler. All good things, but it felt a little off since I wasn’t rushing to my classroom to teach second period. In the in-and-out of the car I caught a snippet of a radio program. The woman being interviewed works with domestic violence victims and has founded a group called “FOCUS.” She explained that the acronym stands for “Focus On Christ for Ultimate Satisfaction.”

I laughed when I heard that. Not because I thought it was funny or silly. Definitely not. But it was THE answer for me in my moment of instability, and it reminded me of the Sunday School saying: If you don’t know the answer to a question, just say “Jesus.” He’s always the right answer.

“Focus on Christ for Ultimate Satisfaction”

Always the right answer! And my silly, instable heart, always wanting what it doesn’t have, afraid of the gifts of THIS moment, needed reminding that HE is THE answer. CHRIST, not community or vocation, is my source of true satisfaction and purpose.

Later in the day I read Psalm 43 (It’s the  43rd day of my Bible-in-a-year program). The first two verses are about enemies, and I was reminded that my own mind and Satan the deceiver functioned quite well in that capacity today: they coaxed me into a free fall. But the last three verses reminded me again of that Ultimate Satisfier, the One who guides all my steps, even when they are leaps into the unknown.

Psalm 43:3-5

“Send out your light and your truth;

Let them lead me;

Let them bring me to your holy hill

And to Your dwelling!

Then I will go the altar of God,

To God my exceeding joy,

And I will praise you with the lyre,

O God, my God.

Why are you cast down, O my soul,

And why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise Him,

My salvation and my God.”

I haven’t taken a whole lot of pictures lately; this is another one that Christi Dithrich took (see the posts from July for more by her). I don’t know if I’ve ever posted a picture of our entire family (minus our host daughters). I’ll take and post a picture of all six kids soon.

Grace in, grace out

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Three more days, and I will make my last trip home from SEI (Summer English Institute: an English-language immersion camp for international students). Though it has been a wonderful month of teaching and ministry, I am so ready to be full-time, 7 days a week, with my family again. This is a pic I took of the crew on an incredibly windy day during our vacation in Montana.

About eight weeks ago one of my friends had surgery on her hand. It didn’t heal well; in fact, the doctor had to open the wound again because a nasty infection had set in under her skin, creating a pocket of swollen tissue under what looked like healthy new flesh. Every day for two weeks after the doctor re-opened the wound, my friend had to go to physical rehab, where therapists pushed and squeezed the flesh below her thumb in efforts to get the infection out. One day during the first week I went with her so I could learn how to do this wound care over the weekend, when the rehab center was closed. As we walked in, several therapists greeted my friend, asking how her hand was, asking how SHE was.

The lead therapist, though, didn’t seem quite as friendly. She stopped by the table where another therapist was working on my friend’s hand. “You have to squeeze really hard,” she said. “Work her thumb back and forth.” When the woman left, I looked at my friend. She nodded in answer to my unspoken question. This, then, was the therapist she had told me about, the woman who had squeezed her hand so hard during therapy that she had been in tears the entire time–the woman who had seemed to be without sympathy for her pain.

That day’s therapist, gently pressing and rubbing, interrupted my thoughts. “She’s right. She’s just that way about it because her brother died not too long ago. But she’s really good at what she does. And she really is concerned that your wound heals, no matter how much it hurts.”

There are quite a few spiritual lessons in that experience, but the one that is standing out to me right now is related to what my friend said when we were back in her car.

“That’s such a good reminder to always give grace. You just don’t know what’s going on in people’s lives.”

Giving the gift of grace.

I haven’t been doing a very good job of giving grace lately. It’s been too easy to categorize, to see others as different—and to see those differences as bigger than the common humanity underneath.

In my last blog entry (so long ago—sorry!) I wrote about my tendency of the last few weeks to focus on my own image.

I’m realizing my recent lack of “giving grace” is related to that tendency.

Here I am, this month, in a new environment, doing a different job, working with mostly unknown colleagues and students, living with new roommates in a sterile townhouse—just about “everything” is new—and my impulse has been to figure out what feels most comfortable and then to snuggle in.

And when I can look “out” from that spot of perceived safety and see people who are not “in” my new little world, who are different from those of us in it, well, all the better for me. The differences don’t even need to be significant—in fact, they’re often silly—because I’m only noticing them to make myself feel safer.

So, cheerleaders with their big ‘ol bows: out. (There’s more on this in the blog entry posted before this one.)

The completely white, almost-no-diversity group: out.

The all-male, don’t-know-what-they-do-but-they-get-special-lunches-in-a-special-room group: out.

This week’s clowns with their face paint and bags of balloons (it’s a Christian clown convention; I’m completely serious): clearly out!

Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit (about my feelings, not about the groups), but I’m also being true.

And it’s all related—again—to how I view myself.

About a year ago, Maddie had a time when she was flat-out mean to everyone in our family. We talked to her time and time again, but it didn’t get any better. Finally, one night as I put her to bed, the Holy Spirit nudged me to say, “Maddie sweetheart, do you know HOW much I love you? You are loved so, so much!”

She looked at me, surprise making her eyes even rounder than usual. “You do?”

It was my turn to be surprised. “Don’t you know that?”

“I thought you loved the others more than me!”

“How could you think that?”

She couldn’t really answer (it probably had something to do with being a middle child), but over the next couple of days, as Dave and I reassured her of our love and as Em plastered her room with notes that declared her love as well, Maddie’s outlook toward all of us changed.

My lack of grace-gifting is no different. It’s the smooth, closed-off cover over a wound of insecurity. When I allow my circumstances to cause me to forget that I am always a beloved child of God, I act just as Maddie did. I point out differences instead of seeing common humanity and the image of God. I focus on outward appearances rather than looking into eyes and getting glimpses of hearts. I separate from others rather than seeing them, too, as beloved children.

I WANT to give grace. I want to love and see others as Christ did and does. That’s a good, good desire, because when we, the body of Christ, give gifts of grace, it is a tangible gesture of the God-who-sees-us, the God-with-us.

But grace-gifting is NOT possible if I pretend my painful insecurity doesn’t exist. The healing skin on my friend’s hand hid the infected tissue beneath. In a sense, it was almost as if the infected skin NEEDED that healthy top layer to protect it from pain. But that top layer also kept the infection from being detected, kept it from being healed. My human infection of insecurity and people-pleasing does the same. It causes me to seek out a smooth outer skin of belonging and group conformity. That allows me to hide my insecurities. And this hiding keeps me separated from others, even, truly, from the group I’ve attached myself to.

I have to receive the gift of grace—revealing grace—before I am ever able to give it. Then grace continues its work in my heart, cleansing the revealed wound, healing it.

Inner grace–revealing, cleansing, healing–results in outer grace.

Grace in, grace out.

Image really IS everything

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*I’m spending the month of July at Indiana Wesleyan University teaching at an English-immersion camp for international students. Mondays through Fridays I’m staying in a townhouse-dorm with two other teachers and eating my meals in the cafeteria with our international students (primarily from China) and whatever other groups happen to be on campus. This week that included an FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) group and the FCC (Fellowship of Christian Cheerleaders). The following story REALLY happened the other night.

Isn’t this an awesome picture! I can say that b/c I did NOT take it. Christi Dithrich, a former student, is starting her own photography business and took some shots of our family. If you’re in the Chicagoland area and looking for a photographer who’s all about getting relaxed, fun, REAL shots of your family–and giving you a good time in the process–you should check her out on Facebook at “Christi Lee’s Photography”: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3740296663377.2150041.1154970204&type=1

I had just dropped my bags at the table and was about to cross the cafeteria to get a tray when an entire group of middle school cheerleaders sitting nearby stood in unison and began to clap and chant. “Beaver one, beaver all; let’s all do the beaver crawl!” they shouted, following it up with an awful “anh, anh, anh, anh” chorus that was supposed to—I guess—sound like beaver teeth chainsawing through wood.

The faces of the college students in front of me—most of them athletes—were priceless, and I had to fight back giggles as I made my way behind the bow-topped, pony-tailed crew still chanting: “Beaver four, beaver five, let’s all do the beaver jive!”

I was just past their table when I saw the cafeteria manager coming, fast, down the aisle toward me. He stopped directly in front, blocking my way. “We’ve had this conversation,” he said. “They are not allowed to do this in the cafeteria. The other diners don’t like it.”

At first I was so confused I thought he was apologizing to me, like “so sorry, I’ve already talked to them, but they obviously don’t get it. What a nuisance.”

But no!

“Seriously, they are not allowed to do this when other people are eating.”

I “got” it then.

“Um, I’m not with them!”

Instant change! “Oh, I’m so sorry. I thought you were in charge of…”

“It’s okay. Really, it’s okay.”

I went on to get my food, and he hunted down the REAL cheerleading chaperone. I had just filled my plate when he found me again. “I’m really sorry,” he said again.
I laughed. “No problem.”

But THEN he continued, “You can understand why I would think that, right?. I mean, you fit the profile. You know. Expressive face,” Then he waved his hand toward my shoulder, “and your…” His voice trailed off then, either because he was about to say something he probably shouldn’t or because my “expressive face” was sending him a pretty clear message.

I got the face under control, reassured him, chuckled (when what I wanted to do was burst into laughter) and then went back to my table and told the other teachers what had happened.

They did plenty of laughing for me.

Then—I’m being honest—we had a conversation about the gigantic bows that many cheerleaders are currently wearing. When big bows died at the end of the 80s, I thought they should never, ever come back. But they have, bigger than ever. Even college cheerleaders are sporting huge loops of ribbon on their heads.

It wasn’t the kindest conversation, and it finally ended when one teacher accused another (not me) of being “cheerleader phobic.”

And I’ve been thinking about that ever since.

Not about being phobic of cheerleaders, though I can still remember being teased as a 3rd grader by a cheerleader-type girl. I sported waterfall-long ponytails in those days, and for some reason my mother positioned them just above my ears and pulled them so tight they stuck straight out like handles—which is probably why the boys grabbed them so much. I look incredibly unhappy in my 3rd grade school picture, and it’s probably a combination of those ponytails, the boys, and little Suzy cheerleader (not her real name 🙂 ) who told me that her “rah-rah” shoes were much cooler than the sturdy, “well made” Buster Browns and Kangaroo shoes that my mother bought me. The “rah-rah” shoes WERE cooler—and Suzy Cheerleader’s cute, single, blonde ponytail was, too, and I knew, somehow, all of that and what it meant regarding my “place” in Suzy’s view of the world.

But, “all that” aside, I haven’t been thinking about cheerleaders or childhood hurts, but instead about my “image” now, and the ridiculous fixation that I STILL have on it.

This topic is really the title and heart of my blog: Who is the real me? And why am I concerned with trying to “be” a particular someone in order to please other people—or to feel good about myself.

Usually my identity struggle is that I’m so busy doing the jobs of mom and wife and teacher that I think of myself as a sum of actions—as in, “well, I do this and this and this, so that’s who I am,” but the struggle is a little different right now.

It’s kind of like I’ve gone off to summer camp, and I’m trying to “find my place.”

Okay, that’s an exaggeration. I’m living with two incredibly grounded, godly—and funny—women, and I don’t even think about my image with them.

But in regards to the camp as a whole, in my interactions with the students and the staff, there is a little bit of the old “rank and file” going on. My thoughts start with, “Where do I fit in? What is my role?” and move eventually to “Oh, my word, I feel OLD! A teacher past her time of relevance! No longer ‘cool,’ no longer ‘hip’!”

Okay, I never was, but at least I was one of the YOUNG teachers.

Not now! Our teaching team includes two professionals young enough to be my children! Six of the teaching assistants—whom we address as “Mr. Aulie” and “Ms. Pivarones—are former students of mine. They’re energetic and full of plans—while

I’m just trying to make it through the month without crashing. Even the students seem younger than ever. When little Phoebe gets six inches from my face because she’s fascinated with my blue eyes, all I can think of is how clearly she’s seeing my crow’s feet and mouth wrinkles!

These are silly, ridiculous thoughts. Worthless thoughts.

God’s made that pretty clear to me as I’ve been studying the life of Jacob yet again this year (that’s what happens when you get too behind on your “read through the Bible in a year” plan and decide to start over; “Hello again, Genesis!”)

Jacob, like me, was a guy who had a hard time figuring out who he was! And every time it seemed like he had learned his lesson, he forgot and relapsed into self-centered, self-promoting ways of acting and thinking.

And I might be tempted to say, “Jacob, that’s ridiculous; you just experienced God’s amazing power—and now you’re doing what?” except that I see the exact same tendency in my life.

So when I read about God’s patience with Jacob’s identity struggles, I am reassured for myself.

Because of Jacob’s story and other promises in Scripture, I can know God will always guide me—even if that involves some wrestling—to a continually clearer, brighter knowledge of who I am IN HIM!

And He WON’T quit on my in this journey! I will become freer and freer from the lies that my value is determined by what I do or what others think of me. I will care less and less about how I “fit in.” I won’t be consumed with any “image” other than that of Christ, and the beauty of thatwill overshadow all else.

Here’s another one by Christi. Love this!

Praying

/ jdunderwood / Leave a comment

I learned the news of the killings in Aurora, Colorado, early this morning. I stepped on the elliptical machine in the fitness center here at Indiana Wesleyan University (where I am teaching for the month) at 6 a.m. Fox News was just starting on the television mounted on the wall, and this was the lead story. I have been praying off and on ever since.

But life has “gone on” for me, despite my feeling that knowledge of a pain as great as this should affect me more. My students are taking a test today, and I am planning for classes next week and making a to-do list of all I have to accomplish before I head home this afternoon. Sometimes I wish I were more like May, the character in The Secret Life of Bees who felt other people’s sorrows, even those from far away, as if they were her own. It’s not a very practical or worldly way to be, but ever since I read that book, I’ve thought there was some beauty to her heart, and it’s given me some insight into how the Holy Spirit intercedes for us (Romans 8:25-27).

Grateful for this God who groans for us and knows the deep needs of all hearts, I have been praying Scripture today. After all, these are the Words written by the One who feels and knows all pain and calls Himself “the Comforter” (Jeremiah 8:18).

“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those who are crushed in spirit.”  Psalm 34:18

Father God, “crushed in spirit” is a good way to describe what these friends and family are feeling. Rescue them, Lord. Help them to KNOW that You are close to them. Draw them into a knowledge of You as the Savior and the Lover of their souls.

Amen