Tag: love your neighbor as yourself

Doing the Jesus Thing

I was jerked awake this morning in the early hours by a weather alert on our phones. The emergency signal had me jumping up, grabbing my glasses, ready to go gather kids into the basement. I was sure it was a tornado warning as the news had been telling everyone to stay alert for that kind of weather. My husband rolled over, grabbed his phone, and told me it was a flood warning. Not a tornado. I sat on the edge of the bed, heart pounding, totally confused. Ok. I don’t need to jump up. Lay back down. We don’t live in a flood zone, the only thing that’s going to happen to our house is for the unfinished basement to get flooded, which it does regularly during heavy rain. I laid back down, but now my heart was still thumping loudly and it took me a long time to get sleepy again. Instead I lay there and listened to the rain and the thunder and lightning and I thought how wonderful it is to hear these things from the comfort of my warm cozy bed. 

Lightning is an issue for our property. We have a large lot, almost half an acre, and during our almost fourteen years of living here, we’ve had three large trees struck and killed by lightning. We’ve also had another tree blow over onto our house. And we’ve had a chimney get blown over. 

I lay in bed and remembered these things, but also remembered that no one got hurt. Insurance helped cover the costs of repairs. And we only have two large trees left. In my constant optimism, I was sure they would be fine. 

Surprisingly, no children ran down to shelter in our room. I’ve got several kids who are not fond of thunderstorms. 

Of course, while I was happily weathering the storm in my cozy bed, there were other people dealing with flooded houses, blown over trees, and other weather-related disasters. 

We have a tendency to do this. As long as we are happy, we can forget about other people’s suffering. 

I read an interesting article yesterday in The Atlantic about the barge that is stuck in the Suez Canal, affecting the world’s shipping industry. The article was talking about how everyone is suddenly becoming aware of the shipping industry and how our goods get one from one place to another. And how this awareness is something that the large companies don’t want us to have. The stores want us to see goods and products that we like and then buy them. They don’t want us to think about underpaid factory workers in poor countries who labored to make those products. They don’t want us to think about this system we all participate in, where the poorest people in the world are taken advantage of so that we can have all the cheap things we want, whenever we want them. If we all actually thought about this when we were shopping, we might make different decisions about what we buy. 

Same theme. I’m fine. I’ve got what I need. I don’t need to think about what other people are going through. 

I’m reading a good book called The Guardians by John Grisham. In the book, a small organization works at helping inmates who have been incarcerated unjustly. People who are innocent. They spend years on each case. It’s a nonprofit. They don’t get paid. They eek by with donations and fundraising. The story is essentially about people who are purposefully looking at someone else’s problems and turning their own lives upside down in order to help those people. I don’t think it’s an accident that the main character is an Episcopal Priest. It’s a very Jesus thing to do. 

Love your neighbor as yourself. It sounds so simple. Sure, I can be nice to people. But, can we look past our own contentment and ease, and purposefully try to see the problems of people around us? Can we turn our own lives upside down in order to help people in need? Can we lay in our warm comfortable beds, listen to the rain, and pray for those whose homes are being flooded? Can we check on family and friends and acquaintances who we know might not be in as safe a position as ourselves? Can we offer our own warm residences as a place of shelter for those who are out in the storm? Can we take our eyes off ourselves and see the people around us? That is, after all, the Jesus thing to do. 

How to Love Your Neighbor

Hello Internet World. Hope you all are well. I am doing pretty good right now. Feeling rather mellow actually. I’m currently sitting at a Panera with my oldest daughter who is home to visit this week. We both have our computers out…writing. It runs in the family. It is my treasured night off that I get once a week and I am feeling pretty peaceful. 

 

I would have to say this a leftover from this past weekend where my husband and I were able to go have a weekend away while my parents watched the kids. It was a much needed break and even though I got thrown right back into the melee when I got home, I am feeling a lot more relaxed about life. 

 

This is having positive effects all around. I’m not feeling on edge, so when the kids are being crazy, I don’t react crazy. I stay calm and that helps everyone else get calm. I’m sure you’ve heard this a million times, Self-Care, take care of yourself…Here’s the weird thing. When you take care of yourself, it helps you to take care of everyone else better. 

 

That verse in the Bible, the Ultimate Golden Rule: Love your neighbor as yourself…it’s hard to love your neighbor if you don’t love yourself. 

 

As a mom, it is so hard to prioritize taking care of myself. It’s my job to be self-sacrificing, the kids come first, my needs aren’t as important. Which is true to an extent, but if I don’t find a healthy balance of taking care of me and taking care of them, if things get out of balance, I end up not being able to take care of them after all. 

 

I know this. I completely burnt out on life several years back and went through a couple years of deep depression. Coming out of that depression took time, and I had to learn some new skills. Here are some things I learned in no particular order.

 

  1. Deal with the inner emotional issues. Get some counseling, therapy, whatever you need, to start digging out the root of your unhealthy behaviors and thought patterns.
  2. Cultivate some outside interests.
  3. Start using your talents that you have allowed to go dormant. 
  4. Speak up. Give honest answers instead of pretending everything is fine. 
  5. Be daring and allow yourself to open up to some trusted friends, show them the real you. 
  6. Prioritize getting regular breaks. Even if they are just a short hour here and there. 
  7. Keep talking to God. Even if you are too tired to read your Bible or listen to a sermon, keep talking to him. He’s the best friend you can ever have. 

 

This is not a complete list, but these are what come to mind when I think back on how God has been teaching me over the years to love myself. And loving myself has made it so much easier to love others. Funny how that works. 

 

How do I Keep Up?

This week I ran into an old homeschooling friend. Though we are often in the same vicinity, we haven’t stopped to have a conversation in a while. I was asking how homeschooling was going and we talked about that for a while, then she asked how public schooling was going for me. I said it was going great. She asked how on earth I keep up with everything. I said something along the lines of, “It’s easy, I just don’t care.” Which, while flippant and funny, probably did not really convey how I feel. It’s kind of been nagging me, and I keep thinking of how I should have clarified that statement…So, my dear friend whom I’m going to tag in this post, I’m going to expand a bit. 

 

Homeschooling is all-consuming, and mentally exhausting. Especially if you are trying to homeschool multiple children. In your mind, at all times, you have a working knowledge of each child’s abilities. You know what they can and can’t do in Math and English and Science. You have a list of things you are worried about for each child, and also a list of things you are proud of. You can’t have a casual interest in your child’s education because YOU are the Educator. It’s a big load to carry. It was too big a load for me. I went through a long depression and in the middle of it, completely fizzled out in my ability to school my children. We put our kids in public school. We’re in our third year with our younger kids. My oldest two kids homeschooled through eighth grade and then went to public high school. My third daughter is in her fourth year of public school. 

 

My view of public school is, my children now have teachers. I no longer have to keep up with all the minutiae. That’s the teacher’s job. Yes, I look at all the papers sent home. I ask my kids what they learned today. I go to Parent/teacher conferences. I look at report cards. But as far as knowing how well they are doing in multiplication or whether they are mastering their fractions or whether they used proper punctuation in their writing assignment, I have no idea. Since their report cards all say that they are getting good grades, I’m presuming that they are learning what they need to learn. 

 

As far as homework is concerned, I don’t believe in homework for elementary school kids. I’ve been upfront about it with the teachers. Sometimes my kids choose to do their weekly “homework” packets because they want whatever award the teacher is offering. And sometimes they choose to not do it. That’s fine. I think that several hours of running around our yard, playing make believe games, and creating things with legos is going to help them a lot more than sitting down and doing a page of math reviews. I do expect my middle-schoolers and high-schoolers to do their homework, but they’re old enough to be in charge of their own work, so I don’t stress about keeping up with it. 

 

Of course, you have to ask the question, What if they aren’t learning what they need to learn? What if they are getting good grades, but are still getting major gaps in their education? 

 

Well, this is where my philosophy on learning helps me out. I am a reader. I have been a bookworm since second grade. While I can remember a handful of odd facts that a teacher taught me in a classroom, most everything that has stayed in my brain, came from an interesting book. I believe that if I can foster a love of reading in my children then I’ve won half the battle for educating them. 

 

We are a reading family. I always have a book on my kindle app that I pull out whenever I have a spare minute. My husband reads a book most evenings to unwind. My older teenagers have long, loud discussions about characters and events in various book series that they have all read. We have eight large bookshelves in our house and books are scattered on every surface. My kids go to the library at school and bring their books home and have fights about whether they have to share their library books with each other or not. 

 

I have one child whose brain is wired differently. In three years of homeschooling I was not able to teach him how to read. In public school they put him in a remedial program and the reading experts got him reading pretty quickly. (YAY!) But, he still struggles. It doesn’t come naturally to him. He’s still getting extra help in this area. But, he read books. Maybe not at grade level, but he still wants to read. This past week I had to take him on a rushed trip to the library because he needed the fourth book of the series and we only had the first three books at home. So, while I know he may struggle all his life to read easily, I’m not worried about him. My kids all have a natural curiosity about life, and they know that reading books is an easy way to learn about whatever they are interested in. 

 

I see public school as an opportunity for my kids to learn about different cultures. It’s a chance to be with the kids from our neighborhood. Learn how to make friends. Learn how to work with all kinds of people. It’s an opportunity to put into practice everything that we’re trying to teach them at home about “Loving your neighbor as yourself”. It’s a chance for them to think about people’s stories. What are some of the reasons why that particular child might have a hard time behaving in class? It’s an opportunity for them to learn how to be problem-solvers: if you see a problem at school, what can you do about it? All of these things naturally come up in our daily conversations, so I get a good gauge on how the kids are doing in these areas. 

 

So, how do I keep up with everything? I don’t. But, it seems to be working well for us.  

 

Fat Fridays: Week 2 The Number of Shame

How much do you weigh? The answer of course is, NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS! As I thought about writing this weightloss blog, I wondered whether I should disclose where I am starting from. How much do I weigh. After much mental agony I decided that the answer is NO. That is just way too vulnerable, way too out there, way too painful. And here’s the question of the day. Why? Why is it so painful to share our weight? What is it about that horrible number that stirs up so many emotions?

Think about it. We have this system of weights that we invented to give a numerical value to how heavy an object is. It’s scientific. It’s helpful. It helps keeps things fair and equal and even. When we buy food we do it by weight. That way, I know that every time I give you a certain amount of money, you will give me the exact same amount of food every time. 1 gallon of milk. 2 pounds of flour. 4 pounds of apples.

I’m not sure why we started weighing people. Haven’t looked up the history of it. I’m going to presume it has to do with medical science attaching value to certain weights, coming up with a system that says if you are this tall and weigh this much then you are healthy. But, if you are this tall and weigh this much then you are not healthy. Those lovely BMI charts. I am not saying that medical science is incorrect. I’ve read all the articles. I fully understand that the more extra weight I carry around, the more likely I am to develop a whole host of unwanted diseases and syndromes. But why does that number, my weight, evoke so much shame?

When I think about the giant array of heights and body types for women, the idea that there is a certain number that we all want to be is ridiculous. It’s a person-by-person situation. My ideal weight will look nothing like your ideal weight. So, why do we hold that number so close to our chest. No one needs to know how much I weigh!

I think for me that number has come to represent just how far away from perfect I am. Ok, forget perfect. Let’s just say normal. If I was a normal, self-disciplined, healthy individual, I would weigh this much. And I don’t. And what does that say about me? It says I’m a slob. I’m a glutton. I’m without discipline. I’m gross. I’m unworthy. I’m unlovable. And I have a numerical value that tells me exactly how far off the mark I am. And so it becomes a number of shame. And there’s no way I’m going to share my shame with you and so…It’s NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS how much I weigh.

Here’s the problem with shame. It’s not a very good motivator. I have tried to use shame as a self-motivator to lose weight. “Look at you! You’re disgusting! You don’t deserve to eat anything but vegetables and water for the next year. You look horrible. You have do something to fix this mess you’ve made.” And so I go on a diet. And I’m angry. Angry at myself for getting  into this horrible state. Angry that I now have to deny myself all the foods that I like. Angry that other people seem to be able to eat whatever they want and don’t have to deal with weight problems. Angry that I am such a failure at life. Eventually a temptation arises that is too big to overcome, I cave, the diet crashes, and I slowly go back to my relaxed way of eating which is to eat whatever I want, whenever I want, without giving it much thought. So yes, shame is a horrible motivator.

I have heard people say that you need to love yourself. That is the way to overcome weight issues. If you love yourself then you will want to take care of yourself, take care of your health. You will care about the fact that being overweight is actually causing you to be more sick, less energetic, less confident. You will care so much about yourself that you will willingly take on the lifestyle changes and make the sacrifices necessary to lose weight. That sounds good. I like it. It fits with the theme I have been coming back to over and over again. Love God, Love your neighbor as yourself. It seems that in order to love our neighbor as ourselves, we would need to love ourselves, right? So, here’s my question. How do you get to that place where you love yourself?

This number, how much I weigh, I’ve been carrying that around for my entire adult life. I left high school trim and fit, went to college and immediately gained 15 pounds. That crept up to 20 pounds before I got married. This number has been staring at me from the scale for 20 plus years now, speaking it’s message of shame. The higher it goes the lower my head hangs. It’s really hard to love myself when this number is loudly proclaiming how unworthy I am.

When I sat down to write this I had no idea where I was going to go with this. Apparently God has some ideas. I guess it’s going to have to come back to my identity in Christ. The world with all it’s systems of measuring, tells me very clearly that I don’t measure up. Not skinny enough, not rich enough, not smart enough, not connected enough. The world’s message is I AM NOT ENOUGH. Right now I am feeling that so strongly. I’m not a good enough wife. I’m not a good enough mother. I’m not a good enough friend. I’m not a good enough anything. I don’t measure up. How can I, miserable failure that I am, ever hope to change my ways and lose weight? I have tried so many times and I have always failed. I’m just don’t have what it takes. So, what does God say about me?

Here’s a list I found:

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I can add a couple more. I am loved by my husband. I am loved by my children. I am loved by my family. Maybe this person, the one that God says I am, can love herself enough to willingly take on the lifestyle changes, willingly make the sacrifices necessary to be healthy again. We’ll see.