Girls Weekend

I just got back from a weekend at the beach with 5 of my friends from church. These are the women who read the Bible together last year. The women who shared what we were learning from our readings, who held each other accountable and then when they heard someone was behind offered to watch kids so that person could catch up on their reading. These are the women who wanted to give up in October when they were two months behind but didn't because we were all in this together and no one wanted to miss out on a weekend away together, the prize for finishing the whole Bible in 2010. These are the women I read the Bible with in 2010, a most amazing group of women. I learned a lot this weekend and thought I would share a few of my favorite lessons.

- Tortilla chips crushed on top of eggs tastes way yummier than I ever would have expected.
- We are wired differently. Some of us are do-ers. Some of us are be-ers. The do-ers run on the beach. The be-ers stay in the house drinking coffee and reading. I am a be-er.
- How to do a tequila shot. I have always had a healthy respect for tequila because of a bad experience with a pitcher(s) of margaritas and friends who filled my glass without me knowing it. Tequila is not the problem. Too much tequila would be a problem. At 37, I know my limits and am able to have fun without getting sloppy. Something I am thinking the bachelorette party girls we ran into still need to learn.
- I am safe with these women. They will look out for me. They will give wise counsel. They will listen to me without judgment. I can be who I am, share where I am struggling, and know I am loved just as I am.
- Real housewives weekends do not end up in torrid, yelling matches with everyone taking sides and the weekend ruined by the drama. Our weekend was drama free and so much fun.
- I love how when I am with these women we can move between conversations about the Bible to Friends trivia, from praying together at dinner to dancing at Karaoke. We do not have to separate our spiritual selves from our fun selves. They can be one and the same.
- After a surprising smooth transition back to the real world, it turns out I was exhausted and overwhelmed because I needed a break not because my life is overwhelming. What a great piece of knowledge to have when I start to get exhausted or overwhelmed again. My life is amazing. I have a great husband and fabulous kids. We are all growing, struggling at times with one another and with the world, but at the end of the day I am truly blessed.

Love Your Neighbor

As I have been thinking about how to handle rejection, I have been felt challenged to stop avoiding the pain and start doing what Jesus taught in Luke 10:27.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, Love your neighbor as yourself." Luke 10:27

"Love the Lord your God." I am not good at loving God. I should be because He is easy to love. He is loving, kind, trustworthy. He does not tear me down. He does not compete with me. He does not reject me. He made me, He knows me, He accepts me. I feel love deep down in the core of who I am, but my actions, the time I spend with Him, my inconsistency in following His commands, my unwillingness to give up my plans and dreams to follow His plan, many of my actions deny my feeling of love. In this I am the problem. Thankfully, He is the answer. And while I find it hard to act out my love of God, it is the second part of that verse that really shakes my world.

"Love your neighbor." Love the people around me. Love my family, love my friends, love the baristas at Starbucks and the kids at my sons' school. I think that in loving my neighbors my actions give the appearance of love that I am not sure I feel deep down. I know how to be kind. I know how to listen and support someone in pain. I know how to serve others and give to others. I even know how to forgive when I have been hurt by someone. I know the right actions to take. Most of the time I actually do feel love for those around me. I love my husband deeply. I love my boys unconditionally. I love being with my friends and sharing their lives.

But there are times in my life, where I am supposed to love someone and I just don't feel it. I have been hurt. I have been rejected. I have been pushed aside. And then the person wants me to let them back in no questions asked. Not even no questions asked but instead without any acknowledgement or understanding that they have rejected me. And I begin to wonder, how many times am I supposed to let them in. How many times do I open myself up for rejection, again. I try to keep my heart detached. I think it is my way of protecting myself. I should be able to protect myself right?

But I look back at what Jesus said and I don't see any words about protecting myself. Love thy neighbor. I am beginning to wonder if my actions are enough? or does my heart have to be in it as well?

The verse says love your neighbor as yourself. If I love my neighbor only with my actions but not my heart, is that how I end up loving myself? Do I see myself only as a compilation of actions and not as a deeply feeling person? But as a deeply feeling person, how can I keep feeling this pain of rejection and not become changed by it?

I am trying to find that place within me that can love others without fear of being hurt. I am finding the more I understand God's love for me, the more I have hope that I will feel His love for others.

Please Don't Hurt Me

Rejection hurts. When someone, whether you like them or not, decides they don't want to be around you anymore, it hurts. There are whole conversations in a myriad of movies about how it is better to be the dumper than the dumpee. I wholeheartedly agree.

"Breaking up is hard to do" the song says. At least that is what I have been told and seen in movie after movie. I did not date much before I met my husband. I actually think I was only on two dates ever unless you count those group dates in college where you find your roommate a date and then you go ice skating or on a scavenger hunt with a group of 20 other "couples" on their awkward date. Since my husband and I never broke up during our dating months, I don't have any experience with breaking up personally. But I have definitely had my fair share of rejection.

In high school, someone told someone else that I said something I never said. It was high school so there was no fact checking. It was like the French Revolution and all those people being sent to the guillotine without trials. I was cut off with one quick slice from that whole group of friends. I was rejected not only by the person I supposedly "hurt" but I was also rejected by all our mutual friends. As I have grown older I have experienced all forms of friendship rejection. From friends growing apart slowly over time, to a friend deciding you don't fit in their life anymore. I am certainly not innocent in this department. I am sure I have hurt many people as my life changed or my wanting to separate myself from someone because of reasons I was not willing to share. Whether it is a quick friendship break up or a friend slowly pulling away from me, it hurts. Knowing someone does not want to be my friend hurts. Even if time is the deciding factor, it still hurts to no longer be on someone's priority list.

I think for me though, my greatest rejection has come at the hands of the people who are supposed to always be there for you. The parents who raised you and are supposed to love you, care for you and make you a priority in their lives. As a child and as an adult, my parents have had other things get in the way of their parenting. Some were their own choices, some were beyond their ability to control, but either way, I was left behind or pushed aside or ignored. No matter the reason, parents ignoring you and your kids hurts.

Rejection hurts. I wish it didn't. I wish I could protect myself from the pain of rejection. I wish it didn't matter. I try to convince myself that I don't care anymore and for the most part I really am able to detach myself. But then the holidays come, gifts are discussed, phone calls are made to get together, and then it is January 8th and I am having to track down the hockey sticks someone has told me they were going to give the kids for Christmas. It sounds silly I know. They are just hockey sticks. Hockey sticks I was willing to go buy myself. But it isn't about the gifts or the traditional ornaments that came almost two weeks after the tree was taken down. It was about the boys who love looking at their ornaments and hanging them on the tree. It was about the boys who for some reason were not important enough to get them their gifts, which were purchased before Christmas, to them until weeks after Christmas. It is about knowing that grown ups were making choices to spend their time with lots of other people, doing lots of other things, instead of taking the time to give the gifts they asked me about and planned with me to my boys.

Rejection hurts and I don't like to hurt. But I am learning that really loving others opens me up to rejection. I used to protect myself by staying detached but that is not the life I want to live or the life God calls me to when He says,

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, Love your neighbor as yourself." Luke 10:27

I want to love my neighbor but I want to protect myself. I am not sure I can do both. And if I can't do both, then I think I know what I must do, even though I don't want to.

I think I must love my neighbor.

Living in the Grey

I recently pulled out my middle school yearbooks. I had to. It was time to figure out who those Facebook friend requests were from. I thought if I pulled out my old middle school year books it might jog my memory.

In my memories middle school was full of good times with good friends. I am pretty sure I purged the bad, painful memories, decades ago. It was interesting though looking through the notes that people wrote in my yearbook. There were quite a few that went something like this, "Jen, We started off rough but I'm glad we're friends. See you soon. Love Always. Beth"

I am thinking I was a tough person to be friends with as a middle schooler. I would like to think I have come a long way but I am pretty sure I am still the same girl I was in middle school. I have moments of terrible insecurity. I am still deeply honest. I also fear that I am just as arrogant, thinking I know what is right, though I have learned over the years to keep my mouth shut a little bit more.

One of the reasons it is easier to keep my thoughts about what is best to myself is that I have learned that being right is hard work. And sometimes I don't want to do the work. I have learned the pragmatism often takes over idealism. I know I need to be consistent if I want my kids to change their loud, disruptive behavior. But most nights, I don't have the energy or the desire to walk back to the car and try walking into the Y again using our inside voices and walking instead of running.

More importantly, I have learned that we are not all trying to achieve the same goal. So while 2 +2 may equal 4, my friend might be trying to add up to 12. We all assume everyone wants to add up to the same ideal. Turns out we don't and that is okay.

I am a big believer in kids sleeping through the night in their own beds. I need my sleep to be a good mommy and my kids need a good mommy so sleep is a high priority at our house. I have lots of friends that struggle for different reasons with getting a good nights sleep. It seems obvious that if they followed my plan they would get a good nights sleep. (I wish there was a way to say that with a wink but typing makes it hard.) But when I listened beyond the tiredness of my friends to their deeper agenda, I learned that my solution did not add up to their real goal, whether it was letting their child know they are always there for them or enjoying the sweet moments of sharing a family bed.

I saw this play out with a good friend of mine recently. She challenged a decision we had made for Hockey Boy. She was coming from a place of genuine concern for his well being and really felt like we were making the wrong choice for our son. I was really thrown for a loop. It is very painful to hear someone say they think you are pushing your kid too hard or harming your child in any way. I started to doubt our decision. But as I got some distance I realized that our long term parenting goals are different. Her solution worked for the immediate problem while my decision was aiming toward a long term goal we have for our boys. I am not sure what my friend's long term goal is for her kids. I am sure it is different. Not better. Not worse. Just different. And so our ways of dealing with various situations will be different. Not better. Not worse. Just different.

And so while I may still think I have all the solutions. I am realizing that I don't. Because I don't know what my friends really want for their kids long term. I don't really know what someone wants out of their life. I do believe that there is right and wrong, moral imperatives, but most of life is spent in the grey. And grey is just that a shade, a color that can lighten or darken as the artist needs to create the image in their mind.