There are a few circumstances in my life that have recently reminded me how susceptible each of us are to the wind and waves whirling around us. I don’t want to be arrogant enough to believe that I’m not vulnerable to their power, where the rust of a sinful heart goes unchecked, slowly deteriorating into deep moral decay. I want to be vigilant in my efforts to protect my heart from corrosion, to safeguard against the elements that can eat away at my faith.

In the hymn, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, Robert Robertson wrote, “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love; here’s my heart now, take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.” He composed this poignant, weighty song and yet, even still did his heart wander, drifting into a lifestyle of flagrant, destructive indulgence.

It requires more than an act of will, it necessitates strength beyond ourselves, a continual asking and seeking God to protect and hold us, to keep us—keep us from decay.

I want to be kept. I need God to keep me. Throughout Scripture, passages speak of God’s keeping—keeping us from stumbling, keeping us from harm, keeping us from breaking our vows. I so desperately need to be kept…hour by hour…day by day…week by week…

Father, please keep me!

I have been desperate for God to fundamentally change a certain circumstance in our life.  It has been weeks, months, years.  No change has come.

God is desperate to fundamentally change my heart.  It has been, weeks, months, years.  The change is very slow to come.

My Father is far more concerned about a change in my heart than a change in my circumstances.

 I need to become more concerned about change in my heart than change in my circumstances.

One of my neurotic tendencies is perfectionism.  I want to do things the “right way.”  I dread error.  There are good things that can flow from such a personality: drive, responsibility, commitment, and care.  But it also carries with it diminished ability to tolerate failure, overarching dissatisfaction with myself, and a crippling that occurs when certain faults, incompetencies, and shortfalls are exposed.

Sadly, I am aware of just how much my perfectionistic inclinations are spilling into my parenting; I want to parent the “right way,” while simultaneously aware there is no such thing.  Even more detrimental is this underlying and unspoken (until now) tension I feel for my little girl to do things the “right way” too.  She’s been unable to escape that pressure.  Yet how can a child ever feel adequate under impossible standards?  How does a little person have the freedom to struggle, make mistakes, and fail when parents don’t extend the space to do so?

Although I’m acutely aware of how impossible it is for a child to live freely under such a weight, my perfectionism touches her little life daily.  I try to fight those tendencies in my parenting, but often fail miserably…therein exposing my own imperfections.  Do you see the paradox?  I desire to give Jessie the space to struggle, but I regularly fail, which triggers my own discouragement and dissatisfaction.  It’s a vicious cycle.

I was helping in Jessie’s kindergarten class the other day and she began to cry when she realized she had done the wrong side of her worksheet.  “Mommy, I haven’t done it right,” she whispered through her tears.  I calmed her down, assuring her of my love and that it is okay to make a mistake.  I wanted her to experience grace.  But my heart sank with her sadness.

At recess, I asked her teacher if she had ever responded like that in class before.

“She has never cried, but it is clear she wants so badly to do everything right,” Ms. L confirmed.  It was like looking in a mirror—a little girl desperate to do things correctly, or perfectly, but unable to measure up.

“I think that’s a problem her perfectionistic mom has created,” I lamented with a little chuckle to her teacher.

“Life’s too short for that,” her teacher replied, cutting right to the heart of the matter.

Shouldn’t I know that more than anyone?  I walked home with a pit in my stomach as I considered the manner in which I’ve already begun to pass along my twisted, perfectionistic neurosis to her little soul.  And I was beating myself up over it, upset over my failures as a parent.

Then I saw the irony.  I was feeling like my little girl who had just completed the wrong side of the worksheet. “Father, I haven’t done it right,” I whispered to God through my tears.  He calmed me down, assuring me of his love and that it is okay to make mistakes.  He wants me to know the sufficiency of his grace.

That’s what it comes down to.  Grace.

My heart needs to expand to more fully embrace my Father’s graciousness toward me; to learn to accept my own weaknesses and failings, as a person and as a parent.  And as I internalize his grace more deeply, so also might Jessie learn to do the same.

“Gagey, just got down on one knee and asked me to marry him,” she enthusiastically announced to me and Gage’s mom who was standing with me.

“Really?!!??  What did you say?” we both asked in unison.

“I said yes,” she replied jumping up and down as she gazed at her new ring.

The whole scenario was precious, indeed.

But what we thought was a brief role-play between two kindergarteners has had more staying-power than any of us first anticipated.  Gage’s “proposal” to Jessie occurred several months ago, but it has carried all the seriousness five-year-olds can grasp.  Jessie has never once removed her ring, they both speak of their impending marriage “when they are adults,” they frequently make gifts and write notes to each other, while also wanting to commit their time and energy to their relationship.  It is truly hilarious and touching all at once!

Gage is a smart, respectful and sensitive little guy—our neighbor and son of dear friends.  He was there holding Jessie’s hand on the first day of school, they eat their snack together at kindergarten each day, and regularly play with one another in our neighborhood.  In fact, it would be hard not to have a five-year-old crush on such a sweet and cute little guy.  But a few weeks ago, I realized their engagement carried a totally different significance for Jess.

She and her friend Emma were in the backseat of my car conversing.  They began chatting about the engagement when Jessie made a suggestion, “Emma, you could marry one of your brothers.”

“I don’t want to marry any of my brothers!” Emma emphatically replied.

“Well, I would marry my brother, but he isn’t here.  Gage is like a brother to me.  That’s why I want to marry him.”  In that moment, I realized Gage was meeting a special need in her young, grieving heart.

So, how do you respond when your five-year-old daughter declares that she’s engaged?

Well, I rejoice that God has seen fit to provide her a friend that can fill some of the void in missing her brother.  I’m a fan of her “Gage-ment!”

Yet, it was a gift.  It was a gift to hear the hearts of these women from many walks of life, with diverse ethnic, socio-economic, and religious backgrounds share their very honest thoughts and feelings as they related to Judson, my journey of loss, and my faith.  They didn’t hold back their questions, their differences, their curiosity, and even their frustrations.  Though it was admittedly taxing and emotionally exhausting, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

But what was reaffirmed to me, as I heard their hearts, is the manner in which evangelical Christians are collectively known for their dogma and not necessarily their love.  They are considered rigid, inflexible, unbending, and narrow.  This stereotype grieves me.  On one level I think it arises simply because we believe in absolutes within a culture that generally rejects such a notion; they view it as elitist, judgmental, and divisive which is naturally identified as contradictory to tolerance and love.  On another level, some of the strongest public voices for Christianity that they see and hear are the extremes, those who may, in actuality, lack love and compassion, or are at least portrayed as such.  So even if on a personal and relational level this is untrue, the perception is pejorative.

My greatest call is to love.  I don’t ever want my theology or beliefs to trump that love.  And it is actually love that compels me to want to share the Hope that has touched my life.  But I am challenged to understand how to lovingly share my faith amidst a culture that already deems the act of doing so as un-loving.

I pray for a grace that so palpably characterizes my life that every expression of faith which touches my lips cannot help but be perceived as an expression of love to the world around me.

Do we, as Christians, separate ourselves and our children from real relationship with those who do not share our beliefs?  Are we choosing the easier and more comfortable path by keeping to our own?  Do we avoid interactions that might challenge us with conflicting ideals?  Are we maintaining a faith bubble around our families?

Yet on the flipside, are we living a lifestyle that looks no different from that of the world?  Has our culture so significantly enveloped us that our choices are not separate from the secular values of society?  Are we not giving space for the Gospel to transform our hearts in such a way where our love is characteristically distinct from those who do not know God?

Ultimately, it seems we have we developed our own activities, schools, entertainment, and communities that separate us from mainstream culture, yet our activities, schools, entertainment and communities totally mirror the world.

The call is to lovingly live in the culture, but live totally counter-culture.  My heart is challenged.

My favorite lounge chair at Cabo Azul Resort.

Drake and I just returned from the gift of an 8-day vacation in Cabo, Mexico.  We had an amazing time of rest and relaxation, relishing the opportunity to escape from the things that usually consume our time and energy.   But interestingly, despite being completely removed from my typical circumstances, I found myself unable to flee the things that perpetually consume my thoughts.

I went into our getaway hoping to find rest, not only for my body, but also for my mind.  Yet what I discovered is how our vacation proved to highlight that which truly rules my heart—the things, both good and bad, that could not be silenced by retreating…and, in fact, emerged with greater voracity when the daily toils of life were eliminated.

I had nothing I needed to think about, so my mind naturally drifted to things I always think about.  I began to write them down.  As my list grew, it became apparent to me that I was gazing upon an unfiltered reflection of my real heart, that which actually takes precedence in my life, that which enfolds me.  While much of my list was good and God-honoring, other aspects reflected vanity, worry, and pride—and even some of the good things were tinged with the latter.  It was a picture of my own humanity, a depiction of my deepest needs and longings, along with some of my fruitless grasps at fulfillment.

This cleansing exercise while sitting on a terry-cloth-covered lounge chair in a foreign land actually proved to bring the relaxation I so desperately needed for my mind.  As all the clutter was cleared away and I was able to take stock of my heart, it was an opportunity to invite God into all those areas anew…

And in that I found rest.

Drake and I celebrate sixteen years of marriage today.

Like so many, our life together has been incredibly challenging.  We have faced unmet dreams, unfulfilling work, financial instability, unforeseen setbacks, and hopes deferred by disappointment …not to mention intense suffering, loss or our beloved boy, and on-going grief.

Life does not look anything like we imagined it when we tied the knot with anticipation in January 1996.  We don’t have four kids.  Drake isn’t yet working as a university professor.   We don’t own a house.   So on and so forth.  And we have certainly failed at meeting each other’s needs as well.

Yet somewhere along the line, it became apparent to us both that the beauty of marriage arises not out of great circumstances or having our partner fulfill our every desire, but instead by offering all of ourselves, including our brokenness to one another and giving each other the space to struggle and fail and not be who we thought they were or wish they would be.

This is the grace God extends to us.  That although we struggle and fail and are not all he wants us to be, he loves, forgives, and accepts us.  Therein, the hard times of marriage have the potential to allow us to experience more of God’s transforming love…at a human level (Keller).

2011 brought significant internal changes for me as well.

God gave me a renewed sense of his faithfulness and provision.  When we began the year on January 6^th with the tumultuous foreclosure of our home and challenging interactions with our landlord (see Destructiveness of Deception, We are Moving, and Renewed Hope) , I was struggling to understand why God was allowing such tearing circumstances to touch my already fragile heart.  I was hurt, frustrated, and confused.

What I could not foresee was the grace that lay ahead.  Through the challenges and heartache of uprooting, God was moving us into a home and situation that have proved far better than we could have even imagined, meeting needs we didn’t even know we had.  God was showing us firsthand how it is often through struggles and pain that his faithfulness is revealed.

Then in November God provided unexpectedly for Judson’s Legacy in a manner that once again reminded us that his ways are often so different than our ways, but he is always at work.

In light of our on-going journey of brokenness, I was especially desperate this year for these concrete reminders.  God opened my heart to freshly see these overarching truths, truths to which I must cling each day, even when I cannot tangibly see what God is doing in my life, particularly through the loss of my Jud Bud.

But my ability to live with that loss changed this year too.  My heart as a grieving mother has grown; the weight of my ache has changed.  I find myself maneuvering through the pain with greater ease.  The hurt is present, it is just different somehow, almost as though the pain was living as an uninvited guest in my heart, but this year I allowed it to move in and become part of me.

2011 will be a marked year on my journey, not simply because of all the outward changes, but because God revealed himself to me anew.  I will continually come back to this year when I need to be reminded that God has a loving plan and purpose for my life.

That said, I look forward with hope to 2012, longing to be faithful with whatever God may have before me.