My Best Yes Week 1: Saying Yes to What's Right Even if it Feels Personally "Wrong"

I mask it well, but I have a lot of social anxiety. While I love to try new things and have the experience of meeting new people, actually making myself do it is hard. I get cranky and defensive anytime I'm going anywhere in a new group setting or even going to see an old group I haven't seen in awhile.  (People who live with me know that the worst time to try to talk to me is right before I have to leave to go to a party or another social gathering I am wound so tight before I leave that it's hard for me not to scream or cry or both.). My instinct is, always, to not go.  It feels like the way out the door is paved with sinking sand in which I will get submerged and smother. My chest feels tight.  My mouth feels dry. My instinct is to hide under the covers forever. I cover all this with friendliness and buoyancy, but that is how I cope once I get there because that is how I know I need to act to be friendly. That is not the instinct in my heart. 

 When I do get out, I get exhausted after more than an hour in most group settings.  I always seem to talk too much and say the wrong things.  The only time I am comfortable in social settings is if I have something to do i.e. cook, decorate, put up chairs, clean up the meal.  When I was younger I did a lot of activities in school and nearly always took on a leadership role because leaders are often too busy for most small talk.  I love book clubs or meetings about specific causes because the social perimeters are already in place and well defined.  I adored doing theatre and music because my parts/roles were well defined and since I was busy pretending to be someone else, I got to spend less time being myself (a person I pretty much hated at the time).  Just going to a get together for purely social reasons is hard--very hard--for me.  Work parties (before I became a stay at home mom) made me anxious for days ahead of time and these were people I loved and already saw every day! It's not that I don't have enjoyable moments once I'm "there," but getting there is a challenge for me and it takes a lot out of me.  I know it is "worth it," but it always feels uncomfortable and wrong to make myself do it.

Of course, this whole anxiety problem of mine has never been ideal because I have never lived more than eight years in any town/place ever.  That means every eight years or less (usually less) of my thirty three years on earth so far, I've had to go out and make all new friends. Over the years, I've gotten better at pulling the bandaid off and forcing myself to make efforts quickly, because the sooner I can make a few friends in an area, the sooner I can stop forcing myself to go to a lot of places filled with strangers to make friends.  

This has also meant that finding a church is hard for me. In fact, I have not regularly attended a church in years. I am intimidated especially by the large churches prevelant in my area.  I fear walking in alone and not connecting with anyone or having them judge me by my social ineptitude. Still, I know I want my boys to grow ip in a church and I want myself to connect with other Christians. So, my best "yes" this week is to "make" myself try another church.  Feel the fear and do it anyway, right?

Nap Time Faux Pas

So, every day before nap, I read books to my boys (the boys get read to at bedtime and other times, too).  The usual routine is for the boys to both get ready for nap and then we all pile into my bed (where we all nap together), and we read one to two picture books per boy and then, as the youngest nurses, I read one or two chapters of a chapter book to my son.  Our latest book is one of the first ones I've read to him that I have not read beforehand.  I know from the synopsis on the back that it is the story of a grumpy porcupine who while wondering out alone on his birthday, comes upon a mother fox who is dying, and promises to take care of her three kits.  As my eldest son is always claiming that he intends to adopt 3-12 babies (depending on the day), I thought he might like this story when I found it at a library sale for $.50.  Naturally, I was a little nervous about the mom dying part, but figured that just made it more "Disney" like.

Fast forward to today. . . we are six chapters in and running late for nap.  Due to me being on crutches for over a week and having a sprained ankle, I had not had the chance to do "big" grocery shopping in some time so the shopping this morning took longer than usual, which meant lunch was late, which meant our routine was off, which meant less reading time before nap, etc.  Before going  up for nap, I told my eldest that under no circumstances could I read more than one chapter today.  We just didn't have the time . . .and wouldn't you know that it was the chapter where the mom died?  And she didn't just die, mind you, she died slowly. . . dramatically. . . speaking lovingly of her babies and how much they needed someone now that she was dying.  The book described the bloody snow from her fighting to get out of the trap for goodness sake.  And I was reading it. . . to my five year old . . .right before he was going to sleep!!!!!!!

Needless to say. . . nap did not go well for him (or for his brother who might be smarter than the average 18 month old and knew something less than savory was afoot).  After nap, he was still so traumatized that he turned his lego playing while I put away the groceries I did not have time for before nap (the cereals and non-refrigerator stuff) into hunters and traps and then kept letting the lego guys go, saying "No one has to die!  Go take care of your babies!"  To help remedy his sadness, we used our afternoon learning time to practice writing character names and to "re-enact" the story using puppets only how we wished it would go, where the porcupine manages to get the hunter, who is sorry for setting the trap, and the hunter takes the fox to the vet and she is saved.  (A little play therapy goes a long way to heal a broken kid's heart.)

What struck me was how lucky we are that God did not leave us in the same lurch that I left my son in.  When he told us his story of his son's death, he didn't just say "that's the end.  Isn't it sad?  Now don't do that to people!" Instead, he gave us the full story with his son's resurrection and the hope it gives us all for the heaven that will await us.  He, like the fox in the story, also gave us a helpers to take care of his children (the Holy Spirit and each other) after his son died, but he also gave us the hope and joy of his son's return.  What a blessing and beautiful story our God has given us so that we can all sleep well every night.

Proverbs 31 Online Bible Studies: Week One Questions and Passage

For this week in the bible study, we are to read this passage and to answer these questions digging deeper into this passage.  I thought I would just do my answers here and if anyone else is doing this study, they can tell me what their thoughts were, too.

Proverbs 2: 1-6

What does it mean to?
–Accept my words: If I accept God words than I believe them and believe that there is meaning within them even if I don't at first understand them.
–Store up my commands: Remember in my heart what God has asked me to do (and biblical remembrance is more than just recalling them to mind. . . when God "remembers" us, the way he did Sara in the old testament, he also takes action, as should we).
–Turn your ear to wisdom: Don't just be content with the words in isolation or as they are in the story.  Listen for the wisdom in them that may relate to my life or to the bible as a narrative/religious whole.
–Apply your heart to understanding:  Look for where this wisdom directly intersects with my current life as I am leading it.
–Call our for insight: Pray for further understanding when I am confused or I am only seeing the surface.
–Cry aloud: Share my insights with others and share the wisdom with those who also seek it.
–Look for it: Look for opportunities to find more wisdom or truth
–Search for it as hidden treasure: Keep an eye out for the gifts/blessings that wisdom will bring to me

- See more at: http://proverbs31.org/online-bible-studies/2014/09/23/the-beginning-of-wisdom/#sthash.m4JF5T3o.dpuf

Leaf Rubbings

I love fall.  One of the crafts I do every year with my sons is leaf rubbing.  There's something just magical about using crayons and construction paper and revealing the beauty lying just underneath the surface, but this year, something else occurred to me as I watched my eldest struggle to the leaf rubbings all on his own this year.  In previous years, he's been content to let me demonstrate how to hold the crayon to reveal the leaf underneath, but this year, he wanted to figure it out on his own and had a horrible time getting the leaf to show up.  There's a trick involved to get the leaf to reveal itself.  You have to know how to use your senses and use the right amount of pressure to reveal the design underneath or your scribblings can obscure the leaf and make it hard for it to reveal itself.  What a perfect picture of free will and how it interacts with God's predetermined design.  We decide the color of our crayon and how we color, God's plan is always there underneath the surface.  Maybe we change how much of God's design can be seen in our lives by not learning (or applying) the trick of coloring in our lives that lets his design shine through, but that doesn't change his perfect design that is underneath.

My eldest doesn't quite "have" the trick, yet, but he's working on it.  The baby is still content to let me help him and guide his hand so his picture is a lot clearer this year than his brother.  Maybe that's what it means to have faith like a little child.  A small child still lets others guide his/her hand and has perfect trust; it's only when we get older, when we insist that everything must be done on our own and our way, that our picture gets really messy.