Part 6: Why Grace Abounds

The sun came up. And the memories of the previous evening made clear that I had two choices. I could stay in my room and never come out or I could face up to my lies. I tried the first option for a few hours and when that did not seem like a viable long term solution, I did the only thing that I knew to do, I ran to my church.

I called two couples that I trusted and they were at the door. I poured out my heart and mess and fears and admitted that I had no idea what to do next. There in my living room, each with questions and concerns and unknowns, we trusted each other and God to help. By the next afternoon, Lucas and I were in the office of a counselor who suggested that I should consider attending a recovery meeting. (This was gracious counselor code for you need help.)

I didn't know what else to do, so I went. I wore a black Punk'd t-shirt and ratty jeans and sat on the back row. Immediately, all I could think about was that I was nothing like these people. Then I went home. The next morning, it was 10:30am and I was already losing my mind with worry about how I was going to make it through the day. So I drove back to the meeting place. And people were there. They gave me this fat book and told me to read it. I got a silver disk that they called a chip and said that I would try this thing called staying sober for 24 hours, but I still didn't think that I belonged.

I made it 5 more hours and I wanted to drink so bad. I was a lunatic. In self-preservation, Lucas asked if I had thought about going to another meeting. Dear, Lord! I must be really sick if I needed to go back AGAIN. This time I went to a different building. The sign said it was a women's meeting. I was still in the black dirty t-shirt and jeans. I had added a black hoodie to try and hide the shaking. I walked in and in front of me stood a room full of women that looked like they could have been my mom and sister and Sunday School teacher. One reminded me of my aunt that is as prim and proper as they come.

I'm confident that I displayed sufficient outward clues of my desperation, but they didn't seem to care. I sat between two of the most confident and together looking ones and I just sunk into my chair. The tears started falling and they would not stop. I didn't understand it in that moment because I was so full of fear, but I had just found a new church. It lasted exactly an hour. They passed a basket and they said the Lord's Prayer. I found this mildly comforting, but my very narrow view of worship told me to proceed with caution.

I went back everyday. Some days I sat next to people that looked like me. Somedays I took Snicker's bars from the older men who appeared to have some experience that I lacked. Somedays I heard stories about adventures that were very different from mine. But, they all talked about turning my will over to the care of God.

I had been there a few weeks and was having a rough day. I was scared and angry and they just kept talking about things like 'Let go and let God.' It was all I could handle. I'm not sure if I had ever spoken much before, but they heard my voice that day. Through some colorful language and fierce passion, I explained to them that I knew a thing or two about God. It was clear in my mind that if God could have saved me, I would not have ended up in these damp dingy rooms with a pounding head and a broken soul.

AND NO ONE EVEN FLINCHED

They let my pain hang in the air and one of my favorite men in the room said in his rough voice, "We're glad you are here. Keep comin' back." That was it. No one tried to fix me. No one told me I was doing anything wrong. They gave me some suggestions about how they made it through days 26-41 and hugged me. I didn't get shamed. No one said, "Oh, honey, I'll pray for you..."

They let me be right where I was supposed to be and never left me alone. I called them at all hours of the night. I took them with me when I was scared of my own shadow. They were the Church to me in ways that I didn't even know existed. These brothers and sisters became my lifeline. I felt that the world outside those rooms had no idea what was going on in my bat-shit crazy mind, but they did. And each day they gave me a little shot of hope that I could go another 24 hours.

All my life, I believed that church was somewhere you went. It didn't matter that I sang a song that told me it was the people. I believed that we "went to" church. The rooms of recovery taught me that the Church meets me where I am.

On the back porch.
In the psych ward.
In detox.
In meetings.
Over coffee.
While sharing stories.
While crying.
While admitting our failures.
While reconciling our brokenness.

Wherever I am, the arm of my new church reached. And this left me in a painful limbo. How do I reconcile this place that has been Church for me in ways that I can't even quantify with the experience that I have when I am taking communion? What would it look like if these two things came together to be a complete picture in my life? I had no clue. Honestly, it did not feel like any kind of church that I had ever known.

Part 5: Why Dishonesty Destroys

So, we left.

And literally, 5 hours after I left the goodbye reception in the youth hall, I started visiting churches.  We had two little ones (almost 4 years old and 3 months old). We were in a season of life where Lucas's job would allow us to live anywhere in the greater Houston area, so we cast a wide net.

While we knew clearly that it was time to leave our church, we were equally as clear that we could not leave the Church. We wanted a community. We wanted people who were giving their lives away in radical, culture clashing ways. The first church we visited was Ecclesia in Houston and I was in love. The spirit, the heart, the space, the story - I loved so many aspects of this place. It was like meeting the person that you were going to marry and at the same time knowing that the timing was very off.

So we kept meeting with people we loved and praying for guidance and reading and studying and serving. It was such a great season. I was more convicted of my call to be a part the Church than ever before. I loved the freedom of designing space for my family to connect with Jesus in worship. I loved the organic expressions of faith that I was reading about and experiencing in other communities. It was like God had opened an entirely new chapter on Church and I could not get enough.

This was also the first time in my adult life that I was not on staff at a church. Whether you agree with it or not, there is a certain level of public moral policing of paid church workers. This lifted the black and white veil of my life and allowed new perceived freedoms. I felt free to have a beer in public or even have alcohol in my home, which up to this point as a 30 year-old, I had never done. To add to this, I had been very sick during my second pregnancy and was introduced to Vicodin. Without anyone's knowledge, I spent the next year and a half convincing multiple doctors of my need for continued access to narcotics. I mixed that with my “allowed” 5pm glass of wine…or 3.

To say that I was a master manipulator would be an understatement. I was living the stay-at-home mom dream during the day, reading everything I could get my hands on about the postmodern church and simultaneously spinning out of control. I created such a wall of secrecy and lies that my husband and best friends had no idea the depth of my disaster. And if I felt like you were getting close to any truth, I pushed you away with the force of a hurricane. I destroyed friendships, drove a wedge in precious family relationships and held all human contact at arm's length. It was cold, calculated and lonely.

I spent so much energy trying to hide the destruction. Imagine juggling crystal balls at the speed of a major league fastball. For a while I kept this facade in place, but when it came crashing down, it fell hard. Let me set the scene:

I was attending my small group crawfish boil with kids and families and boiling pots and beer. At this point, I was free from the church rules, so why not? While everyone else had one or two beers, I had a secret stash in a small cooler. In addition, unbeknownst to anyone, I had already taken pills. The mudbugs were consumed and the yard games were enjoyed, and all was great. Deep into the evening, I was in the yard and someone noticed that I was standing in a fire ant bed. I had no clue. After dusting off the ants, I was escorted to the car and I will never forget the look on Lucas's face when he asked, "Are you drunk?"

I passed out on the way home - in my 5 year-old's lap. I don't remember getting from the car to the bed or the bed to the bathtub, but sometime in the middle of the night, I crawled to my bathroom. I recall crying sobs of misery and the only words that came to me were, "I love it too much."

No one had a clue. And tomorrow was Sunday. It was Palm Sunday, in fact. I was scheduled to teach our small community that night. What in the hell was about to happen? When the light of day hit the mess that I had created, what was going to happen? I had never felt so alone and so ashamed. I didn't know it was possible to hate myself that much. I just wanted to die.

Part 4: Why Depth is Vital

Because I can't tell any story without adding in this detail, you must know that I met Lucas exactly a week after my acceptance to seminary and 3 months before my college graduation. I was fully committed to pursing student ministry and planned to complete a 2 year degree in Kentucky. The summer before I left, he saw a preview of my heart as I served as a summer intern at another church. He loved hanging with the students and having come from a very small home church, he was immediately drawn to the adventure.

I had two looming faith challenges in this season. The first was learning to make peace with my place as a woman in ministry. Surrounding myself with a variety of theological perspectives had presented me with a void of clarity concerning the blessing on women in pastoral ministry. Most supported my work with teenagers, but as a barrier to having to face known resistance, I avoided all talk of ordination in my  denomination. Just to be clear, the UMC had no conflict in this area, this was an internal struggle. My second area of turmoil was my smoldering love affair with all things mind and mood altering. I combated this area by choosing a school that required all students to participate in a life free from the use of alcohol and drugs. For this season, I allowed the weight of this expectation to be my moral compass.

Many plane trips, expensive phone bills and a tiny dramatic pause proved challenging. As Lucas would tell you, I called home and announced that I was coming home after a year in hopes of becoming Mrs. Hilbrich. Spoiler alert, it worked out. After a season of part-time ministry in College Station, another summer at a church in Houston and an Aggie diploma for my man, we moved to League City in December of 1999 with an open mind and a desire to serve.

Within weeks of visiting local churches, we found one with a familiar feel that needed a youth director. I started full time in March of 2000.   It was an exciting time, filled with dreaming and planning and students and trips and memories. In this season, in the name of my commitment to students, I placed hard and fast 'rules' on my life. These spoken and unspoken expectations held many of my future challenges at bay. It did, however, solidify a way of living that demanded an exhaustive dual life. Who I was with friends and who I was with the students in our ministry were vastly different people. Additionally, I adopted the belief that the call to ministry was a lonely road where few could really know you. It was my job to lead and that caused a very large chasm between the truth of my life and my Sunday morning face.

This character split only intensified after the birth of our first of our daughter. I fell into a deep depression, and as I began therapy and medication to care for myself, I hit a new layer of hiding. As I was meeting with a church leader one day, I was told, "Don't ever tell the parents what is really going on in your life. If they knew, they would not trust you with their teens."

So I put on my big-fat-happy-liar church face and lived a very lonely existence. I was burned. I was bruised. I had this list of things that I had to do to keep it together and I was barely hanging on. It was a dark season personally, and it solidified in me a deep, deep belief that if you really knew me, you would not like me. I added this to the list of black and white thinking by dividing my life into ministry life and my other life. And, never the two should meet.

But somewhere in this season, I heard a voice that was different. He had a unique view of Church and God and faith and study and well, most things that I needed to have reoriented. And through his words and writings, I began to crack open this small place of hope that maybe this thing that I dreamed of giving my life to might really change the world. I started to talk with people who had similar thoughts.  I began to see that the Church did not live and die in a denominational system, but instead in the hearts  of people who were committed to changing the world for the One who turned their world upside down. I began praying again. And, listening again.

But I have to tell you, I didn't like what I was hearing. What I heard was a message of transformation that was going to undo the 30 years of history that I had with this thing called Church. It meant that I was going to have to open my eyes to new dreams and the unknown. But I could not walk away from it, so I sat in a scared place until one day we pulled up to our church parking lot and Lucas said, "It's time for us to go."

That's how everything changed. I was living in a frozen space of fear and doing it quite well on my own. I had life compartmentalized in safe, protected buckets. And, then it was time to go.

Part 3: Why I Still Come Home

We left off yesterday with an idealistic 18 year-old, a Baptist college and new found freedom. When I left for my first semester, I was excited about the new adventure and at the same time apprehensive about what college might be like. I had seen the movies and I was mildly concerned that I was in over my head. My guiding principles of faith wisdom were to stay away from sinful people and choices. I felt there was no better place than a University where we did not co-mingle dorms (except from1-6 on Saturdays and Sundays with the door open), we had mandatory chapel, alcohol was strictly forbidden and we could not dance on campus. What trouble could I possibly encounter in such a place?

Honestly, my freshman year, I did not find much. While I certainly did not find a home in the library, I also enjoyed my new found freedom to snooze right through class, eat all of the ice cream I wanted and stay up late in the night talking on my credit card calling card (remember those?) to friends at home and at schools across the country. The 40' phone cord would stretch from my room into the hall bathroom and I could stay up all night on the phone. This was amazing! No one was going to tell me to do my homework. No one was going to tell me not to stay up and watch TV all night. And there was this new thing called email! I could type things to friends and send them on the computer and if I stayed in the dorm computer lab long enough, they might write me back. It was CRAZY! You can stop laughing now. I know, I was wild.

The one consistent that year was that I went to church. I tried them all. I like the Methodist the most, but I did find dancing in the aisle at the charismatic Baptist church fascinating. Especially since we could not move our hips in a fornicating fashion on campus, but when you put on flowy polyester, Jesus loved it.  I found a small group that I ate dinner with each week in the home of a precious woman who tried desperately to love the most ragtag group of kids. She was gracious and kind. I also visited many other college services, bible studies and student union groups. I never found a place that I LOVED, but most Sundays, I went somewhere.  Even if 11am Sunday morning came and went in my pjs, I would spruce up a bit and go to eat in the dorm, pretending that I had checked the box.

After a first semester that landed me no 'real world' college experience and academic probation, I had to buckle down and make better grades. I had a goal. I wanted to join a sorority. When I went home for the summer, I made it a personal mission to test out a few experiences that had been on the naughty list for all of adolescence. I used that summer to stick my toe in the morally off limits pool and guess what, I did not combust. Not only did I survive, I began an immediate love affair with the feeling of chemically induced freedom and I was off to the races.

I will lump the next 2 years into one bucket. What you must know about these years is that I loved my friends, my life, my sorority, my college and I needed this season. I am the person that I am today because of this season. What I will not go into are marked occasions when I knew in my gut that I was in over my head. I was hurting. I was in a class called Intro to Ministry that I had been tricked into taking. I had to acknowledge the fact that at one point I had realized a call to serve God with my life and yet I was in a place that had me running in the opposite direction. I didn't know how to put the brakes on. I didn't know how to make since of this very real experience of calling and the very harsh reality that I was sprinting as fast as a I could to prove to God that I was unqualified. This all culminated on Ash Wednesday 1996.

I can remember deciding that I was going to go to an Ash Wednesday service. I probably did not even tell my roommates where I was off to, but I can still remember the dress I wore. I remember walking in the downtown church with its big stained glass windows and musty smell. I can remember the wrinkly usher handing me a bulletin. These things were familiar. They were like a warm blanket on a cold night. They were the balm on some very open and gaping wounds that needed to be cleaned out. I don't know what was said that night. I don't know what we sang. I know that I sat by myself in the pew and with all of the earnestness that I could muster, I came home. I didn't know what that meant, but I said, "I'm listening."

Now, I'm guessing from the events that took place the remaining 3 months of that semester, most in my circle of friends saw very little change. But that night opened a conversation with God and me to begin some housekeeping. This led to my first job that summer in student ministry. It led to more changes my senior year. It led to the decision to apply to seminary after graduation. It also led to the first of my tattoos, courtesy of a bonding experience with my supervising youth pastor.

On my hip is a swimming ichthus. The ichthus an image of a fish used as a symbol of Christianity. You may know it as the decal on the bumper of cars. You know the ichthus on my hip is swimming because it is blowing bubbles, three of them to be precise. I believe in art symbolizing my faith and this piece was a worthy tribute to the place of desperation and confusion and hope that were all propelling me forward. I didn't know where I was going, but I trusted that this was a journey worth continuing.

Part 2: Why I Can't Leave

So, yesterday's post about Sundays seemed to spark some great thoughts and discussions. I have heard from many of you. You agree with some of my ideas, but I'm not foolish enough to think that all who read it found it easy to swallow. Here's what I know - any time we bring up the word CHURCH we are diving into a personal and sacred space. For many, this is a holy sanctuary of hope and light. For others, just the mere mention of the word floods your mind with guilt and judgement and fear. Yes, I find my heart filled in the context of the communal faith experience. But I also feel very convicted that in inviting all to join me in this journey, I am digging up memories of pain and loss.

Because I pride myself on transparency and truth, I cannot write one post on valuing Sundays and leave it all as glory. The Church, and all that it brings, is not all sunshine. For rest of this week, my blog is going to focus on the ups and downs in my church going experience. We don't get to the place where we pour our heart and soul into a mission without a good story. Sure, my happy children's choir days are mighty special, but so are the very hard lessons that I have learned from working and serving and giving my life to a community that I feel as passionately about as I do the Church. As we begin, you must know that when I say 'Church' with a capital 'C,' I am referring to the universal gathering of the followers of Jesus. Statements made with this broad stroke are ones that apply to all of us - protestant, catholic, evangelical, conservative and progressive alike.

While you may only read one or two of the posts this week, please know that this is a collective set. Don't think that my Pollyanna-ish view of ministry in today's post is what you will see as you read on Wednesday or Friday. Because the truth is, people are involved in the Church. And with people comes brokenness. And with brokenness comes opportunities for growth (that's my super positive spin on painfully hard, gut wrenching seasons of hell).

As you read yesterday, I fell hard for Church life at a young age. I liked the ritual and the classes and people and the cool robes. I thought the mystery of the texture of the communion wafers was fascinating. I thought that sneaking in to climb in the rafters of the sanctuary (mom... we didn't get hurt or break anything...that we know of) was so cool. The majority of my childhood memories involve some aspect of churchy-ness. And I loved every minute of it.

My first taste of grown up church life came when I was the youth representative to the Church Council. In my mind, this meant I was official.  AND I got to go to meetings. I thought I had arrived. The way I saw it, if these grown-ups could see how great I was, I would be in charge in no time! I found my place at church. I didn't fit into the model of normal teenage life. I really wasn't interested in being rebellious. I didn't skip school or drink or smoke. I loved Church because I didn't like high school and if I did the right things and studied the right books and listened to the right music I was 'popular' at Church.

This was formational territory I my understanding of what contributed to a life of following Jesus. In my moralistic mind, you were either a good or a bad Christian. I didn't want anything to do with the bad, so I latched on to checking ALL the good boxes. I must stop for just a moment and express a word of apology to anyone who knew me in those days. I feel certain, no matter your reason to encounter me, that you were judged on my Jesus-loving scale. Life was so very black and white to me. For the thoughts and words and scowls that knowingly and unknowingly came from my judgey-jugerson self, I am so, so very sorry. Here's the good news, keep reading in the days to come because I learned the hard way how much I was a broken, flawed, desperate child of God.

Despite this limited thinking, came a very real and genuine desire to honor God.  As I prepared to go off to Baylor, I had done all that I could think of to serve my local church. I was a youth group leader. I was a youth choir member. I served the larger United Methodist Church on committees and boards. I spoke on Youth Sunday. I even served on the retreat team at my high school, thinking that maybe my wisdom for God would rub off on some of the wild girls. Did I mention that I was judgmental?

One of the last trips before I left for college was a large youth gathering on the University of Arkansas campus. We heard speakers and worshiped and learned. As camp was coming to a close, in true youth camp fashion, they had the service. This is the end of week service where they invite you to dedicate your life to God in a new way. I was a veteran, and I knew what to expect. As I sat through the muffled hormonal sobs of intense adolescent feelings, I watched and genuinely prayed for many that were open to seeking God for the first time. I assumed that they would be ushered to the waiting adults and the rest of us would be left to close the final night with a dance, we were Methodists, mind you.

But then the speaker offered another invitation. I don't really remember exactly what the words were, but the message was something to the effect of, 'if you can't get away from this tugging that God has a big plan for you to serve the Church with all that you are, come on up here.'

I had no intention to move from my seat that night. And before I could realize what was happening, I was on that auditorium stage with other teenagers and they were praying over our lives and ministries and callings. I had no idea what that meant. Many days, I still don't understand it, but I can tell you that my life was never the same. I knew from that moment forward that whatever road I traveled, I was supposed to do it in a way that God was the center of my journey. And then I picked up 5 weeks later and went to college. And, well, college taught me a few new lessons.

Part 1: Why Sunday Still Matters

I grew up in a family that was always at church on Sunday mornings. I cannot remember one Sunday that we were not sick or out of town that we were not at church. It is what we did. To this day, my heart gets excited to see the many faces of my childhood that taught my Sunday School classes, lead my youth group, directed choirs and organized Vacation Bible Schools. I love that I have treasured childhood memories, but I love it even more that I have relationships with those same friends as adults. We don't go to the same churches, we don't even live in the same towns, but I feel a connection to their lives that is unique.

It didn't happen out of obligation. Sure there were days when as a 15 year-old I did not enjoy waking up on a Sunday, but I loved it when I got there. It didn't happen because we walked in at 10:59am and were out the door at 12:05pm. For my family, church was not a weekly one-hour event, but a way of life. My parents were active in their own gifted ways. My dad led singing for the kids and taught Sunday School. My mom had so many roles in children's ministry that I dare not count them. When we aged into the youth program, it was my parents that organized retreats and went to camp and planned lock-ins. There was even that time that dad serenaded the charter bus with his version of Poison's "Unskinny Bop." Thanks, Frank.

Church life was not just about committee meetings or responsibilities or attendance. Church was family. They were the ones we spent Christmas Eve with (and still do). They were the ones that celebrated our birthdays with us. Those same precious friends drove to East Texas to celebrate my Granny's life. They were our traveling partners on many family vacations. They were at our weddings and graduation parties. They were our people.

In the modern context of church life, this seems to be abnormal. Sure, most churches would say they are about community and connection, but raising kids in 2017 means weekend sporting events and travel meets and all-weekend school activities. Even if you are not booked from 9-noon on Sunday, the pace you keep the other 168 hours of the week does not set you up for prioritizing the Sunday morning experience. Just keeping it super real, you have to work to go to church in our post-modern world.

Is it worth it? I would argue that it is the very best use of my parenting energy. Not because of a flashy and cool youth program. Not because my kids are entertained or love the preaching. It is vital because we live in a world where connection is scarce and being known and treasured is a lost commodity.

If you don't like your team, you can join another one. If you don't like your job, quit and get a new one. If you think your school is too big, choose one with individualized instruction. If you don't like your teacher, just change classes. Our kids are growing up in a world where your individual needs are paramount, and the Church today pays the price.

Maybe I'm being a little hard-nosed on this one, but I think it's good for my kids to expect that on Sunday and Wednesday nights and on serving days, they are going to be present with their family at church. We don't hold the line as tightly as I recall in my childhood, as we do miss for special events (including sports). But we also choose not to do things on Sunday morning so that we instead spend that time together. It is a very fine line between helping my girls value community and not creating resentment that they are missing out on their events, I get that. But I also think that we don't have to be everything to everyone on everyday. Saying 'no' to what I want in favor of the good of a community is a skill we all need to work on.

I still love my faith community. The church that I am a part of today is very different from the church of my childhood. We don't have hymnals. We don't wear dresses. We have a band. I must tell you, if we were to sleep in on a Sunday or skip out on a small group or summer camp, my daughters would be throwing a big fat fit! They would miss seeing their mentors. They would be so sad to miss their week helping in the pre-school class. If they missed a Wednesday night dinner and study time, I would be the one in big trouble. They love their community. They love that they are known and loved and missed when they are gone. They love their 4 year-old friends and their 64 year-old friends. They love when a new baby comes to church for the first time and when someone chooses to be baptized.

And even though the name and location and feel are different from my traditional church of 1984, the foundations are the same. We love Jesus. We share life together. We feast at the Table. We value each other. We show up in the good and the hard.

It is my greatest prayer that when my girls look back on the church of their childhood that they will know that they were deeply loved and that the world needs them to continue to be bearers of hope and grace and community. Sure, we can do that in ways other than gathering together on Sunday mornings, but in my darkest hours of life, the place I knew to run was to Jesus and his people. I'm so thankful for the ones that were there for me in my childhood and the ones that are still there for me every Sunday morning.

Taylor Swift, Blink-182 and Pink!

Our oldest decided that she wanted to play the guitar when she was in the 3rd grade. This sent me on a search for a teacher. Up until this point in my life, my only journey into instrumental excellence came from a painful two and a half year attempt at piano lessons. My piano debacle ended in a full blown pre-teen fit in the teacher's yard where by I loudly proclaimed to my mother, "I know dad wants someone to play for him in his old age, but I can't do this anymore!" Seriously, I have no idea where my girls get their drama...

I have always loved music. I tried choir in middle school. I auditioned for the ensemble group in high school. Fortunately for the ears of all involved, I was not selected. I made a run at the church bell choir, but I really did not play music, I played color coded circles. On a good day, I did it correctly.

I should have known that AJ would be more passionate about musical mastery from the beginning. We bought her a small electric guitar and she learned some songs. This was in the height of Taylor Swift's rise to fame, so the story of a blond haired teenage songbird had my dreamer hooked. Each week I would sit at her lessons and stare at the beautiful guitars. I had no idea how to play or tune them, or even read the music. I was watching my kiddo pick up on these skills, but they were foreign to me.

After a year of looking and dreaming, I mentioned to her teacher that I would give anything to have the coordination to play drums. I mean, really? Who does not want to be cool enough to play drums? Say what you want about the lead vocalist, but when I see a concert, I am mesmerized by what is going on in that cage. My coordination gifting, however, did not set me up for Travis Barker like success. I knew I would look like a cross between an arthritic giraffe and Animal from the muppets. I am not cool enough to be a drummer.

But he would not let the idea of me trying something new die. Each week, he harassed me about trying guitar. I knew the technique involved in being a good guitarist was challenging at least, so I sheepishly began peeking past the shiny black acoustics to the bass section. I had no idea what it took to play bass, but damn they looked cool. So one night, I went on Amazon (stop wincing, musician friends) and bought a bright pink beginner bass with a checkerboard strap.

A few weeks later, I took my first lesson. That was more than 5 years ago. Every Thursday, I take my 30 minute lesson. The best part of my teacher is that he has never forced me to learn theory or guilted me about practice. Instead, he lets me bring in everything from Pink! to David Crowder and we figure it out together. Over the past 5 years, he has learned a lot about being a momager of two girls and pastoring a church. I have learned what it looks like when you give your life to a passion and don't let education or a paycheck determine your success. I like to think it is a mutually beneficial lesson.

I will never be a great bass player. I had taken lessons for two years when I was guilted into playing in front of another human. Since then, I have joined the band at ECL. Let me be very clear, I am far from self sufficient. Most Sundays that I play require remedial help from both my teacher and our worship pastor. They both graciously encourage me. My family has the pleasure of listening to me practice in the living room. I secretly enjoy practicing on Saturdays when they are all in the room because without fail, they sing the songs. Even though they act like it drives them crazy, they love the preview of the next day's set list.

We mistakenly think that in adulthood we master things, not begin them. At 36, I needed to learn a new skill. At 41, I still need to be a student. I need to have times that I am relying on someone else to teach me something new. We all need to regularly place ourselves in the humbling position of student. When we think that we have figured something out, we become complacent. When we take a beginner's class or start a new job or walk into a gym for the first time, we are intentionally saying that we are ready to learn. This is a powerful statement.

If I ever grow up, I still want to be a learner. I want to travel to new places. I want to read new philosophies. I want to sit at the feet of people that have already learned and be their student. I never want to reach the place where I think I know all that I need to know. That is lame. And, it is also the time that arrogance and insensitivity and ignorance and hate begin to weave into your consciousness. When we become stagnant, we invite into our hearts and souls the space to assume that we have life figured out. I don't know about you, but I have much to learn.

So, book an art class. Sign up for a retreat. Seek out a spiritual mentor. Join an exercise group. Take a swim lesson or get your scuba certification. Learn to sail. Take an e-course. Join a book study. Find a way to place yourself in a position of learning. Not only will you be blessed by the education, but you will cultivate gratitude for all those around you who are struggling to master a new computer skill or Algebra or faith or sobriety or the bass.

Why I Won't Run Away

When we moved into our house more than 17 years ago, I thought we would live here for 5-10 years. Did I mention that I have never played the future guessing game well? Not only did we stay, but we have put down roots in this community. There have been seasons that we felt that perhaps a move was on the horizon, but up to this point we have been planted in the same place.

This has provided many challenges and blessings. I have traveled a bit of a winding road since 1999. The temptation to change locations to avoid the pain of growing still (to me, this is also known as growing up), has been great. When I am uncomfortable, I want to change positions. When I feel uneasy, I like to leave the situation. And when I have wanted to reinvent myself, the temptation to leave my known has been pressing.

But there are days like today that I am so glad that I have remained. We did not know a soul in this town when we moved here. We were 23 and 24 years old and we had no idea what the next season of life would be like. Upon moving in, we found our place at a local church. I was on staff as the student pastor and we were immediately surrounded by teenagers and their families. I loved every minute of that season.

This house has hosted sleepovers, hide and go seek marathons, volleyball in the field, Bible studies and movie nights. It has been toilet papered too many times to count. It has been host to retreats and game nights and all of this happened before 2006. In the 6 years of full time ministry, we had countless teenagers in our home. They were our kids before we had kids. We genuinely walked with and cared for and loved them.

We now have a youth group of our own in this house. We still host lock-ins and mission trips, but now we are the dorky parents rather than the cool young adults. We still rent vans and take kids to camp, but now we have the grey hair to prove that we are old enough to be covered by church insurance.

Staying in the same house with the same phone number has provided me with surprise Sunday afternoon knocks, from now grown ups, that just want to see if we are still here. It has blessed me with deep adult friendships. It has given my kids a wealth of adults that love them. It reminds me daily that if I can stay still and grow up, my relationships will deepen with time and hardships and celebrations and life experiences.

Today we had lunch with one of these teenagers. As we talked, I was reminded that we are now the age of the parents that I met when I first came to League City. Our kids are the ages of the teenagers and they are now the ones with houses and young kids and careers. My kids now babysit for their kids. I get to call them for help with all things grown-up. What a great ride!

Just 17 years ago, these kids were the reason that I dressed in obnoxious costumes, stayed up all night and lost sleep about their worries and futures. Today, they are my neighbors, colleagues, advisors, cheerleaders and family. It seems like a lifetime ago, and it was. So much has changed and yet in that change so many wonderful journeys have remained connected because I did not run for the hills when I was uncomfortable in my own skin.

And the best gift of all? Because I didn't run, they know where to run when their faith and life and marriages and kids and struggles are hard. Sure, we share the good, but I have sat in some of life's hardest struggles with them because ministry doesn't end when you age out of the youth program. Relationships are the heart of ministry, and they extend all the way to hospital room and the wedding reception and the rooms of recovery. They bring you face to face in the grocery store and the therapist office. Relationships like these share coffee on a sunny afternoon and tears at a graveside. I thank God everyday that student ministry was only the introduction.

It's a GIRL!

We did not find out the gender of our children during pregnancy. We decided that there were very few surprises in life, so we went the old fashion route of delivery room discovery. Both times. This drove some people in our lives crazy. It significantly simplified baby prep because there was a singular focus - a baby. No color choices. No nursery decisions. No outfit coordination.

I can still remember the moment that they said, "It's a girl!" There is a video of my reaction and it is so clear that while I played a good game of 'what ever is perfect', I was mighty darn excited to have a daughter. Skip ahead 3.5 years and repeat the process. Same pre-event poker face, but upon announcement, I was beyond thrilled because that meant SISTERS! 

In the 11 years since then, I have learned that sisters fight. Sisters are not always best friends. Sisters can be very different. Upon refection, I wanted my oldest to have a relationship like I had with my sister. Instead, she received an entirely different gift who will inevitably teach her equally important lessons. However, 15 months apart and 3.5 years apart make for some challenging differences. They struggle to find common ground at this age and somedays (lets just be honest...most days) it is more like a scene out of a Wrestle Mania cage match than a precious Little House on the Prairie moment. 

My desire to have daughters, and for my girls to have a sister, was the obvious dream of duplicating my childhood. What I did not expect or even know how to appreciate, was just how perfect of a girl dad Lucas was going to be. He was made for this gig. Now granted, he is just a super fun dad, so a son would have loved him, but he is seriously the man when it comes to these girls.

If you follow him on social media, you know that his two primary posts include concerts and sports. He loves these activities because his girls love them. Our oldest loves live music. In the last year, the two of them have seen 30+ bands together. Sometimes they take a friend (for instance tonight they are seeing Blink 182 with AJ's best friend and her dad - how cool is this?!?!?), but many nights it is just the two of them. They go to small venues and big arenas. He stalks ticket outlets. They catch drumsticks and guitar picks. They stand in line for pictures and they get cool t-shirts - that they always buy in a large so they can share it. THE MAN.

While sports come a little more natural to his love language, he gets the younger daughter's passion for physical activity. They ride bikes together. They play in the pool together. They go play putt-putt or bowl on dates. They smack talk their basketball brackets. And even though she is currently beating him, the competitive banter will continue until next Monday night. She may get her spunk and fierceness from momma, but dad loves and encourages that athletic fire. They get each other.

Every night, he walks down the hall and does his bedtime rituals with them. This is one of my favorite things because he loves them each in their own way. I'll spare you all of the squishy cuteness, but there is one part that gets me every night. There is a metal giraffe named Gertrude that lives in the corner of AJ's room. After the kisses are given to the humans, he walks over and taps Gertrude's neck (which is on a spring) and says goodnight to Gertrude, too. He loves all the many ways that our girls are unique, even the metal spirit animals.

When we were standing in the delivery room more than 15 years ago,  I wanted a girl so that I could have a daughter. Today, I am so thankful that I have daughters because I fall in love with their daddy each time I see him express love to them. I know that being a dad to a teenage girl can prove exhausting, but to all the dads out there that are in the trenches, you got this! I can tell you from personal experience, the love that this daddy's girl was given in those years helped shape the woman I am today. Let them sit in your lap, be engaged in their life, know their passions and their spirit animals. They will never forget it. 

Where Will You be in 2027?

"Where do you think we will be in 10 years?" At our house, this question is a favorite conversation starter on date nights. We regularly laugh at the notion that we can predict the future. 10 years ago, I would have NEVER guessed that my life would look anything like it does today.

At the time, our oldest was in Pre-K and the youngest was 20 months old. Our youngest had developmental delays and she was not speaking. She was going to physical, occupational and speech therapy and was wearing leg braces. Our oldest was terrified of most things, including the thought of going to school. My slow starting youngest is now one of the most active (and loquacious) pre-teens I know. My brave oldest faces down challenges and is thriving in all things education. But on March 22, 2007, I could not have predicted this path. 

Tonight I was teaching our Lenten study at church. We are calling it "Cries of Redemption." The topic we discussed tonight was relationships. As we talked about the changing roles that people play in our lives, I was struck by the ever morphing rhythm that brings people into and out of our lives. Sometimes it is a geographical move or a birth or death. Sometimes it is an interest or activity that links you for a time. And sometimes, there are relationships that were once vital and closely held that are now fractured and separated.

As I stared at the drawing we did tonight, I realized that there is pain with any relationship loss, but in each change came a new level of wisdom and listening and vulnerability. When we experience the loss of those we love, we are invited to examine the how's and the why's. We are given the opportunity to clean our own side of the street in understanding the brokenness or grief. We are granted access to liberation from wounds of yesterday and we are given the freedom of what's next.

I will never be able to predict the future. The more that I ask the 10 year question, the more I enjoy that the unknown is just that - even when it comes to the humans that mean so very much to my journey today. Because the truth is, that is all we have. We have this time and this space and these people for today. May we soak up all that we need from all that we love. 

Available?

I was in yoga class today (let's all just pause and let the fact that I have been participating in a form of physical activity for 2.5 months sit for a second...thank you) and there was a situation. A person in my physical condition fears these words from an instructor, "We are going to have an active flow today." This is code for you non-flexible and out of shape yahoos are in trouble.

I have come to embrace that I have to modify almost every class. That is a given. But this thing they (notice I did not even attempt to do this thing) did today was cray. We were all sitting on our blocks. I did that part. And we were stretching our hips. Check. Then there was some binding...and then standing...and some balancing...

I know I was staring at the instructor with my mouth hanging open in horror. How can these people do such things? My teacher so graciously said, "Do this if it is available to you."

Well, it was not. There was nothing about this pose that was "available" to me. And it sent me on a journey with this word available all day.

Available:
adjective
1. suitable or ready for use; of use or service; at hand:
2. readily obtainable; accessible: available resources.
3. having sufficient power or efficacy; valid

I wonder what seems unavailable to you today? Is it hope? Or love? Or grace? Are you struggling to see how peace is ever going to be obtainable? Does it appear that all that you are grasping for is not accessible?

All of these things and so much more have seemed out of my reach at one point or another. There are many days when I still feel like the list of the available resources is much shorter than the one that announces the many things that are unavailable.

Perhaps it is my natural negative bent, but more times than not, I am focused on the things that are unavailable rather than the things that are already firmly grounded in my life. Just like in yoga today. The class was an hour. Sure, there were some things that were hard. There were things that I modified, but there was only ONE pose that was completely unavailable to me. The other 58 minutes, I was totally availing myself of good, whole, healing stretches that just 3 months ago, I could not do! I had a moment today that I had to stop and look at my feet in my downward dog. My heels were less than 1' from my mat. THIS IS HUGE!

Just weeks ago, I did not have the strength to hold that pose very long and now I am comfortable. I  have made new friends, and learned to breathe in new ways and forged a new path for prayer that makes my heart very available to seek God. In all of that goodness, I spend countless amounts of energy on the 2 minutes that I can't do rather than the 58 that I can. Am I alone in this struggle? Nope.

So for today, may we focus on the many things that are available right before our eyes and hearts and minds and bodies. And for the areas that feel unavailable right now, may we continue to do the hard work of preparing the way for the day when we to can stretch in new and crazy ways.

Birdcages, Chandeliers & Purple Blankets

I love my bathroom. I have always found comfort in the running water of a bath. For my 40th birthday, my husband gave me a new master bath. Because the master bathroom is not a place that visitors to my house often wander, let me shed some light on this sacred space. I designed it. It is entirely black and white. It has antique tile. The wallpaper (yes, this is something that people today still use) has black and white birdcages. These are big birdcages, each 12' to 18' tall. There is a freestanding tub with a chandelier above it. Yes, this is a completely impractical room. I'm sure that the next owner of this house will change everything. I don't care.

I don't have expensive sports equipment. I don't have fancy toys. I don't gamble. I don't drink. I don't have fancy purses or shoes. I have a bathroom. With a chandelier.

Almost every night I lie on my bathroom floor. While in earlier years of my life this may have been a distressing scene, it is a normal and comforting one in this season. I have a large basket that holds fluffy blankets. I have throw pillows that I keep close by. When I am ready to unwind, I set up my pallet on the floor, complete with my laptop, headphones and my Coke. Most nights, my family gets in bed and I am on the bathroom floor. About once a month, Lucas wakes up in the middle of the night to find me sleeping there. I just get so darned relaxed! 

Netflix shows are watched in my bathroom. Sporting events are streamed in my bathroom. Podcasts are listened to in my bathroom. I am actually writing this blog from my bathroom floor. Odd? Perhaps. But, did I mention that I don't care?

There was a time when I would have felt incredibly guilty for this space. There was also a time when even when I was in my space, I wasn't able to ignore the phone or lock the door or turn off the day. I am getting better at all of these things. 

This is my time. This is my space. Some people find it in exercise. As much as I am growing to love yoga, I am still not relaxed in my practice. When I am lying on my fluffy purple blanket and have my headphones on, I can find my center. My best sermons are crafted in this space. My deepest prayers are prayed on this floor. My creative dreams are ignited in these 4 walls. My physical body is relaxed in a hot bath with the chandelier sparkling above me.

And these birdcages? Well, they are a reminder to me of the unique, whimsical, creative and very worth it person that is being filled up so she can be set free to fly. 

It may be your car or your bed or your chair or your porch. It may be your backyard or your craft room or your yoga mat or your reading nook. Make a space for your heart, mind, soul and body to be nurtured. Protect that space as your own - even when all the littles and spouses and cats and dogs want to invade it. And then, hide there. For 5 min or 5 hours, give yourself the gift of a big deep breath of rest. I can promise that you will be changed. 

Thank Y'all for Sharing

I am blessed to be a member of a great teaching team at ECL. We are very different and we often approach the text from such different backgrounds and experiences that often I walk away from a Sunday morning and think, well I would have never thought of that! This rich tapestry of life and reflection allows us to better understand the human impact of faith.

Coming back from vacation, I have to confess that I did not spend much time this week dwelling on Psalm 107. This is the text that we are spending the entire Lenten season on in our community. Each week, we are adding a piece of the chapter to show the many ways that we cry out to God and in mercy and grace, God rescues and delivers. 

I walked into church this morning happy to be home but mildly time zone hungover. I was comforted by familiar faces and good coffee. We sang some favorites and settled into the teaching and I could tell in the first 5 minutes that my friend Matt was bringing goodness. 

Darkness to light

That was the theme of the teaching. My mind flashed backwards to the stories that I have shared with you in the past 18 days. It flashed forward to those that I know will come in the weeks ahead. I am a girl of redemption. My life and story is full of darkness. It is also a place of hope and light. But this did not happen overnight. 

I didn't wake up one morning sitting in the depths of complete darkness and think, well today is the day to let the sunshine in. Moving from darkness into the light is complicated. For me, it begins with a tiny match of hope. Someone usually has to light it for me because shining light in the scary dark places is horrifying. If I'm really lucky, the match only has to be lit once. More than likely, though, I will blow it out in fear and sometime in the future I will have to try again.

Every once in a while, the match seems to hit kerosene and starts a fire. Here's what I know about fire. It burns. It hurts. And sometimes it takes a fire and it's refining powers to penetrate the darkness that we are masters at perpetuating.

I absolutely adore my Southern roots, but they are wildly exhausting.  In the South, words like "nice" and "fine" are code for barely tolerable and one step short of misery. 

Let me translate this Sunday morning conversation in the church parlor for you:

Friendly neighbor: How are you today? 

(I am supposed to be kind and great you cordially, but I really don't want to know)

Gracious Southerner: I'm just fine. *insert painful smile*

(There is a good chance that my child is failing in school or I have a sick relative, but we always smile on Sunday)

Friendly neighbor: I'm so glad to hear that! Have a blessed day.

(Whew! I heard that her junior higher is up to no good and her dad got bad news this week, but I wouldn't want to appear to gossip. I'll add her to my prayer list)

I grew up with the understanding that one does not air their dirty laundry. They certainly don't tarnish a family reputation or call attention to messy. There is just no need for the entire world to know your business. Now, in all fairness, this may work for some. It does not, however, work for those of us that find it life's game to see how far outside of the lines we can live without getting caught. 

When you live your life to portray the image of togetherness, you are slowly turning down the dimmer dial on the light. If you are living one life in the light of the church parlor and have an entirely different world in the darkness of your bedroom or kitchen cabinet or wallet, you are not living in the light. 

I'm sure that both of my grandmother's are fit to be tied about my public blogging of my very personal woes. They may be having coffee in heaven with their twice-a-week-set-hair shaking their heads and trying to figure out why in the world I am airing my dirty laundry for the world to read. Bless their hearts.

Here's why. I have received countless emails and texts and Facebook messages in the last 18 days about how much someone needed to hear the story I shared that day. I have literally cried as I read your stories of hurt and loss and life vests and aloneness. I have heard from friends far and near (some that I don't know how they saw this blog) that can't believe that these things happened to someone like me. Can I clear something up? These things happen in our lives because we are human. 

There is no amount of education or money or faith or birthright that will protect you from darkness. It may look different. The resources available to you will vary, but the pain of human experience is the same. So if you find yourself in darkness today, know that you are in good company AND you don't have to stay there. 

I'm not made for pleasantries. I often greet people with "How are you, REALLY?" Let's agree that the answer of, "well, my life is going to hell in a hand basket" is waaaaayyyy more freeing than "fine."

Let's do real. It's the only way in the world that we are going to be bearers of light. And, friends, the world needs some torches carriers!

Better Off Dead

I don’t remember driving there. I don’t remember where I was going. I just know that I was headed east on NASA Rd 1 approaching the bridge. My thoughts were jumbled. Nothing in my brain was connecting. I was physically present, but I wasn’t there. My best thinking told me that everyone in my life would be better if I drove my car off the bridge. At the moment I made the decision to do just that, I looked in my rear view mirror and saw her.

Actually, I could not see her face. I could see her car seat. She was almost 9 months old. She was precious. Her smile and laugh were a gift to so many people. My mind told me that I was failing her. I was fully convinced that her very capable grandparents and daddy would do a better job of raising her than I could ever do. But her presence in that car kept both of us alive that day.

I was dying. No one knew it. I was finishing a busy summer as a youth pastor. I had gone on mission trips and camps and youth week and Astroworld trips. I taught Bible studies and led worship. If you were to look at an album of pictures from that summer, you would see a smiling happy Lacy. I was a master of the cover up. I was a self-sufficient machine that had powered though pregnancy and childbirth. I returned to work after 4 weeks, baby in tow and launched back into all that full-time ministry to students requires.

And then the ground under my feet began to break apart. I had never asked for help before. I began to have these fits of intense anger, like throw someone across the room like a wrestler anger. I wasn’t sleeping, which is not all that uncommon for new moms, but this was more. I spent energy worrying and working in the night on things that didn't matter. And then the anxiety increased. The more I worried, the more I tried to fight it, which only caused a cycle of perceived failure. I could not will myself out of this. I was convinced that this was all because I sucked at being a mom. This little one did not deserve this. I knew she would be better without me. And the deep dark hole of lost swallowed me up like hot lava. I could not outrun it and it was burning me from the inside out.

What I didn’t understand at the time was that hormones are wicked powerful. Combine that with a brain chemistry and DNA that is predisposed to mental health issues and you have a recipe for postpartum disaster. I lived in League City, TX at this time which is less that 10 miles from the neighborhood where Andrea Yates drowned her 5 kids in a fit of postpartum psychosis. That was my only reference point for postpartum anything. I knew that I did not want to harm my baby, so I falsely assumed that this was not what was wrong with me.

We were on a trip with my family when Lucas saw just how bad things had become. I woke from a fitful sleep and FREAKED OUT. That’s a very technical term for a panic attack. He had never seen me like this. He literally held me against the bed. All I could think was I am broken and I didn’t think I was repairable.

Let me pause for a moment for my life PSA: There is nothing more co-creating in God’s plan for redemption than modern medicine. Please don’t ever buy the lie that somehow faith alone is the best path to mental health. Depression and anxiety and phobias and countless other diagnoses are MEDICAL conditions and require medical help. What that involves is best left to your doctor, therapist and your heart to discern, but there is nothing that gets me more furious than a religious teaching that includes spiritual guilt about seeking medical help.

We came home from our trip and I called one of the only therapist that I knew. He patiently sat with me and talked me through these lies and many others that I had perpetuated in my mind. He got me in to a doctor and a psychiatrist. After many attempts, we found medication that helped me see small cracks in the fog. It took many months before I could see daylight.

Remember the story I told about my sister? This was the storm that she carried me through. Because of the fear that encompassed my life, I was petrified when I was given the label postpartum depression. In my mind, PPD meant that I was going to drown my baby. That was not a logical fear, but there was nothing logical about this season. So I did not do bath time - for more than a year. That was Lizzie and daddy territory.

I also needed sleep. When your basic sleep cycle is seriously disturbed, you stack the deck for chaos. The doctors forced sleep with medication, which meant that I had to trust that someone else would answer the middle of the night cries. I had to realize that I could not do it all. And when I tried, I made a mess of all living things so it was time to recognize my humanness.

This was not the first time in my life that I had tried to be a savior to all. That was actually a nickname that friends gave me in college because whenever there was trouble, I would rush in to save the day. But my experience with PPD was the first time that I had the bricks of stability knocked out from under me. It would not be the last, but it opened the door for me to learn to seek help.

Why do I share this story?
I do so because there are new moms that need to know they are not alone.
I do so because there are those that falsely believe the reason for their depression is a lack of faith.
I do so because I am not the only super woman out there trying to keep her crazy contained.

Let me tell you friends, we are better when we get help. We are fuller examples of beauty when we lean on other people. It’s time to shred this idea that we have to keep up the lie of self-sufficiency. We need doctors and friends and sisters and spouses and children and co-journeyers to remind us that there is life and beauty on the other side of our pain. And we have to hand them our hope to hold when we are unable to see the hope of our future.

Who do you need to hand your hope to today?
Who do you need to hold some hope for?

Don’t take on the Healer’s job, you are not their savior, but let's be the flesh and bones of hope to this world.

Haight & Ashbury

I am raising a liberal* minded teenager. The asterisk of this blog is the clear recognition that this is coming from the perception of a white, recovering evangelical Christian from Texas. My oldest is a free thinking, progressive, people loving girl who would tell you that she expects a protest arrest to be a part of her college experience. She is passionate and knowledgable. She is well read and a thinker. I love these things about her and yet I am constantly trying to give her perspective on the world that is a bit more broad than her 15 years might allow for. She does not back away from a hard conversation. Nothing is ever off limits.

She is being raised by a passionate, politically aware and involved mom. Add to this a church family that places a high value on loving all and serving the world and you set up the blueprint for exposure to many people, places, things and ideas.

I love this about our family. I love this about our community. The only down side is that it has created in her heart big, big dreams. Dreams that I fully recognize may take her away from the safe, guarded confines of our home. When we teach our kids to serve others and fight for justice, we have to prepare ourselves that they may see an oppressed people group and want to be a part of liberation.

This is where I find myself today. My girl is dreaming. She is talking to people from different backgrounds and paths. She is listening to people's stories that are not like her own and this excites her. Today, I watched her eyes light up when she heard about interfaith experiences and mental health advocacy on a college campus. I saw the wheels turn when she was presented with the challenge of a big scary demand and she didn't shy away, she set a goal.

Her last request before leaving San Francisco today was to go to Haight Ashbury. As I walked approximately 10 blocks by her side, I saw the world though her eyes. We were walking the same streets where 50 years earlier her grandparent's generation had stood for love in a way that most of the world could not understand. All these years later, my 15 year old was seeing this broken world though her eyes and she was not afraid. We saw a drug deal. We saw a young man rolling his joint on a window frame. We saw countless mentally ill homeless teens and adults. She never once winced. She didn't look away. She saw people with stories. She came up and put her arm though mine at one point and said, "I want to walk with you so I can hear more about the history of this area." And then she went into a record store and bought the soundtrack of The Breakfast Club.

We have encouraged this independent thinking. We have conspired to open doors. We have shared our own journeys (highs and lows) with great passion and now she is itching to make her own path. So, we will have to let her go. We have to allow success and failure. We will encourage and let her dream. We have to help her be realistic. We have moved from caregiver to coach. The parenting journey is amazing. The parenting journey is hard. But much like I said in an earlier post, when we see them becoming young adults that we would want to be friends with...well, I think that is about as good as it gets.

The Group Text

Parenting in today's world is freaking hard. Yesterday, I read a tweet by one of my favorite 'celebrity' moms about group texts. It has been on my mind for the last 24 hours, so as I lay in a dark studio apartment spending some time trying to listen and write, this mental exercise is once again playing itself out.

The last time I was in San Francisco, I was pregnant with my first child. I was a youth pastor with the great wisdom of a 25 year old. I had a very beautiful flip phone, and the iPhone did not exist. Fast forward 15 years and I have two technology savvy teens and a small computer in my pocket. 

Enter modern parenting challenge #4822:

How do I give my child freedom, teach them responsibility and at the same time monitor their digital footprint?

I know I screw this up. I guarantee that I am doing it wrong. For all the things that I am trying to do right, I still have much to learn in this arena. Getting on a plane and flying across the country has given me another opportunity to examine the tech phenomenon facing our kids.

I came to California with my parents in 1988. When we left Houston, my only ability to communicate with friends for the next two weeks came by way of hotel stationary and postcards. My girls, on the other hand, have had instant access to friends, gossip and news from home this entire trip. Don't get me wrong, I get it. I do, too, and I love it. But the challenge to monitor their input has been in my face this week and I am reminded that we cannot let down our guard.

If you don't know what is happening on your kid's phones, something is wrong. Its just that black and white. If your child is in middle school and you cannot access all of their input and output, I would encourage you to reconsider why they have a phone. We gave our kids a phone for convenience, safety and ease of communication with us. We did not give our kids phones to aid in group think, to lower their self esteem or to allow them to speak "anonymously," or to further gossip. 

We have removed our kids from group messages because the result of 15+ girls on a group text (intended or not) usually involves someone in that group with a wounded spirit. We have read and had many a conversation about tone in typing vs intended intent when it comes to the written word. I find these teaching moments to be especially vital in middle school. My kids were not ready for the freedom of Snap Chat in 6th grade. Cute filters or not, the implied temporary nature of the tool has produced a false since of freedom. In my experience, the damage of even a quick thought or image is lost on maturing brains.

My kids know that I have the ability to pick up their phones and read anything at any moment. My fingerprint opens their phone or it is no longer their phone. I know many other parents that follow this standard. Because of this, good kids are moving almost all of their communication to apps like Snap Chat that do not retain a record of communication. What was a gossip and mean girl problem in 7th grade becomes a topless picture problem in 10th. Because I am an in your face, constantly discussing all things that embarrass my kids kind of mom, these are normal everyday topics of conversation. 

A week away has given me time to see what is coming over my kids phones. It has called me to discuss appropriate story topics. It has given me the chance to see the DMs that have been sent. I have GREAT kids. They have great friends. And we all still have work to do in this area. 

I complain when my kids don't text their aunt or grandfather back. I expect them to have Find My iPhone on at all times for me to locate them. Technology is great. Technology is also a tool by which our kids will fail if we don't help them. 

A few things to think about:

If you don't know what a streak, a DM or a filter are, it's time to have a talk with your teen. 

If your kids are using an app or playing a game that you don't understand, learn it. If you don't like what you learn, delete it.

If you do not have access to your kid's phone, iPad or computer, why not? Handwritten diaries are for private thoughts, technology is not the place for things that are not to be shared. 

If you see other kids involved in destructive behavior, what agreements do you have with their parents? This is so tricky, but we can't catch everything and we need our co-moms and co-dads to help. 

Painted Ladies

We had some hard moments on our family adventure today, but there was one memory that stands out. It took a group effort. Lucas was the driver. AJ was the cinematographer and I was the navigator and sound engineer. You see, Ally loves Full House. The show is set here in San Francisco. As the theme song plays, the camera scans past what are known as the Painted Ladies. Theses are brightly painted row houses that are home to the Tanner family portrayed in the show.

Our morning had not gone as planned. Ally was a great sister and took care of loving on AJ as she spent the morning at the urgent care. Our doctor from home wanted her checked. For the 2.5 hours that it took us at the doctor, Ally waited patiently. She rode around with Lucas. She persuaded him to take her to buy a snuggle to cheer AJ up. She would not let Lucas take her to the Muir Woods without her sister. She was a champ.

So as we made our way into SF, I sent my accomplices the signal. I cued up the theme song on the radio as we made our way over the hill. As it blared on the radio, she giggled and AJ said, "LOOK ALLY!" Her smile was classic. AJ caught it all on video. Who would have thought that a dorky show that came out in 1987 would inspire a precious family moment 30 years later?

Sometimes we never know how the creative efforts that we offer to the world are going to shape someone's life. I can almost promise you that when Jeff Franklin set our to create this show, he did not have visions of a 41 old mom and her daughter (who is currently the age that I was when the show was first released) sharing a sweet moment on a family vacation. We just never know.

The world needs more positive creativity. The world needs more family memories. The world needs more goofy group projects that show people how much they are loved. In the midst of the hard days, may we choose to celebrate the silly and fun and great quantities of love in this world.

The Thing That Takes Your Breath Away

Do you have allergies? Perhaps your nose gets runny in March and October. Or maybe you start sneezing when you walk into a pet store. I am allergic to cats. This would not be quite so problematic if I did not have dear loved ones that are cat people. I myself will never own a cat, but my physical discomfort from cat hair is so sensitive that I cannot take fabric hand-me-downs from cat loving homes without significant consequences.

I also have a kiddo with allergies. Hers are a little more tricky. Beginning 16 months ago, she developed rashes and hives. At first, we thought is was chemically based. Then, we began to address stress induction. Today, she had a reaction to what we can only assume is food. Her face becomes flushed. Her throat starts to burn. She has hives. Her chest gets heavy. We carry EPI pens in case of emergency. It's scary.

She takes two monster shots every month to help the hives, and it certainly helps. But reactions like today still happen even though she wakes up each morning and takes 540mg of Allegra and each evening, she takes 30mg of Zyrtec. Every. Freaking. Day. Today, we added liquid Benadryl for safety reasons.

Allergies are terrifying. They literally can take your life giving breath away. But, they also call you to diligent self care. You must take your medicine. You must see your doctors. You get shots. You watch what you come in contact with. You avoid known triggers. And even when you do those things, they can still flare and the only thing to do is rest and let your body heal with added rounds of medicine and napping.

Perhaps it is not acrylic fumes or kitty fur or nuts, but is there something in your life that has the ability to take away your life giving breath?  Something that you have to stand against it in a daily discipline? You may even have a life rhythm that helps you protect against the destruction. But sometimes you have a day where out of no where, your chest gets tight and you can feel the shallowness of your breath.

What's your EPI pen? Is it your best friend? Is it music? It is your Bible? Is it yoga? It is art? If you don't know what to run for when you begin to feel the itching or the sneezing, perhaps you have some work to do. That's my challenge for you today. In the blog or Facebook comments, share your lifeline. Just type one or two or five words. Let's share with each other the many ways that we seek healing. No judgement, there is no right or wrong. May we just be encouraged by the many ways that the Creator is redeeming creation.

Life Vest Under Your Seat

I am currently flying thousands of feet in the air. It is not a bad flight, but it is certainly not smooth. There have been some bumps. Both girls have practiced their deep breathing. As things began to smooth out a bit and the Coke order was about to be made, I noticed the sign above my head - Life Vest Under Your Seat. 

I understand that these vests are to be used in the event of a water landing, but my guess is that if this plane were to go down, the women in 22 A, B and C would all be dead of a heart attack long before we hit the water. Our panic would have caused hyperventilation and seeing that this momma would probably forget to put her mask on first, we would all be headed toward the Light. 

How many times in our lives do the signs for help seem to feel a little delayed or empty or insufficient? Like when someone tells us ‘just turn it over to Jesus’ when we don’t even have the strength to pick up our heavy burden, much less hand it over. Or when we are in the midst of one of life’s most painful moments and well meaning friends tell us to ‘just ask for help’. First of all JUST should not be in that sentence. It’s so hard. It’s so heavy, this asking for help business. 

I have had a day or 1,000 when I needed to head the emergency signs flashing to save me. Sure there have been life vests, but in my brokenness I could hardly breathe, much less reach under a seat. 

It is my experience that sometimes we just have to nose our way into the deepest pains of those in our path. When I was a new mom I was incapable to taking care of my baby. I’ll tell this story another day, but let’s just say I literally could not function. I have this amazing gift called a sister. We call each other Daudie. I will not tell this story because you would laugh, but ‘sister’ just seems insufficient for the ways this woman has carried me, so Daudie it is. During this season, she taught school all day and every Tuesday and Thursday would drive in rush hour traffic from Houston to League City. She would meet me at our babysitter’s house. She would help me load the car, drive home, unpack the car and most importantly she would help me bathe and feed my baby. 

I never asked her to do this. I told her many times to stop, that it was too much. She didn’t listen. I cannot imagine the things she said ‘no’ to in this season because she was taking care of me. I did not have the capacity or ability to ask for help. I needed her to tell me that she was coming to my house whether I wanted it or not. She did for me what I could not do for myself. I had no idea how to reach for the life vest. She not only handed it to me, she strapped it on and stayed Velcro-ed to me until I was on safe, dry land. 

Perhaps you find yourself in a place where you need help and have no idea how to ask. Maybe you don’t even know what to ask for. You just know that things are not ok. You are in a lonely place and you don’t see the lifeboat anywhere around. I know this sounds crazy, but send up a flare. Look at the person in your life that can hear this and say, “I need you.” 

And If you are the person who is given gift of receiving this cry, respond. They don’t need you to fix them. They need you to listen and show up. Show up in ways that they don’t ask you for. Show up at their house with dinner, not because they can’t cook, but because you can sit with them and eat and listen. Develop a SOS signal with that person. Agree that when a certain word or phrase or song is texted to you, you will do all in your power to be there. If you are able, stop what you are doing and arrive on their doorstep with Starbucks or a babysitter. Adopt a rap theme if you need to lighten the mood. I promise that if you text me “Mama say knock you out” I will know exactly what you mean and you will have my full attention. In my darkest days, I didn’t want help, but I needed it. Be there for your people in big and humbling and magical ways that show them just how much they mean to you. 

We can talk another time about boundaries, but for now, just be the one to reach under the seat.   

I'm a Quitter

Today I read a blog post by Sarah Bessey that blew my socks off. You need to know that one of Sarah's descriptions of herself is, "Practitioner of Resurrection." LOVE THIS. But first, you must read it.

quit-drinking

I need to thank her for her honesty and compassion and courage to tackle a topic that is tough. As a woman in recovery, I resonate and hear myself in many of her thoughts. But many are very different. My journey to sobriety did not come in a decision. It came in a crashing storm that forced me to change or lose it all. More than the reasons, we share a lifestyle without alcohol. I am taken by the elephant in the church room that she has bravely addressed. This was the paragraph that I had to read three times...through some tears.

"I also began to notice how the church had begun to embrace drinking as well. Others of my generation who had also grown up in legalism regarding or abstention from alcohol perhaps, and so were exploring their emancipation with micro-brews and homemade wine over thick theology books and bible studies and hymn-sings. Then I began to wonder about stumbling blocks and I couldn’t seem to shake off early church admonitions to consider one another, to give preference to one another’s weaknesses. Were we setting someone else up? Were we judging the ones who abstain as legalists?"

This is a sensitive (and personal) topic, so I need some grace, ok? Hear my heart...

Were we setting someone else up?
Everything is permissible. I know this to be scriptural and true. I also wholeheartedly believe that the pictures we post on social media, the drinks we serve and the places that we choose to drink matter. What you may not know about the disease of alcoholism is that it never goes away. I am in remission. But I have the cells of this disease in my body and given the environment or mindset or failure to maintain my fit spiritual condition, it will rear its ugly head.

As someone who believes in the church. I pray that the church can hear these next few sentences with the cries of desperation that I possess. Please watch your audience. You will never know how the presence of alcohol at your small group party or your wine tasting at the Sunday school progressive dinner or even the beer brewing fundraiser for a great cause impacts your friends, children, family and pastor. There are many social events that I decline attending because I know that alcohol is primary. One of the first things I was taught in recovery was that I had to change my play people, play places and play things. I may choose, even after some days of sobriety, not to place myself at the restaurant table where everyone is drinking. I may choose not to go to a concert or dinner party or even a wedding if I know that I will spend the entire time looking at what's in your glass and wishing that it was in mine. But declining these events are MY CHOICE because I know what I am walking into.

When it comes to the church, it breaks my heart to know that someone would have to choose not to come for fear of the presence of alcohol. Even more heartbreaking, when a recovering alcoholic gathers the nerve to attend a church social event and is blindsided to find that everyone is enjoying the wine that the group member brought back from Napa or the beer they just tapped.

Venturing into social settings in sobriety is scary as hell. I am so fortunate that my husband gave me a gift on day 1 that I would never be sober alone. The only time he has had a drink in 10 years is when he was 6 states away on a fishing trip with my dad. He's just a wild guy, I know. If you see us at an event with a bar, he will be the one in line to get me my Coke. If there is a glorious desert spread, he tastes everything first and gives me the secret sign that I'm all clear. These are just a few of the many ways that my social life is different on this side of putting down alcohol.

I would never want anyone to think that I would prefer you not drink. I'm totally in awe of those of you who can drink one or two and stop. That was not my experience.  I pray that you can enjoy the freedom that God has given each of us to fully live into the things that you love and bring you life. I just want you to know that when you venture into a activity that brings so much pain and shame and hurt for some, your time and place and story sharing matter.

Were we judging the ones who abstain as legalists?

The second question Sarah asked really struck a nerve. Here's why. I have been sober long enough that many people in my life today have never seen me drink. As I make new friends and engange in social settings, they quickly realize that I don't drink, but they have no idea why. I don't wear a RECOVERING ALCOHOLIC warning button. But I do easily share that I am an elder and pastor. Do the math. The logical leap in my southern Bible-belt world is assume that I don't drink because I believe it is wrong.

It's cool to be part of a forward thinking church that is not tied down to shaming ideas and rules. I love the fact that we are constantly working to take down walls that divide, including systems that have taught shame based life correction. But I'm still a church lady. We are engaged in giving our life away 24/7. My kids are continually balancing sports and school with the priority that we place on church involvement. I have the stigma. Most people are more comfortable with this idea of me than they are the one where I hid booze in my house and mixed it with pills. But in my post modern skinny jean loving world, the legalist Christian and the drunk are both super unpopular.

My main motivation for finding the middle ground on this is my teenagers. I have never hidden my addiction from my kids. They knew that mom had a problem. They also know that mom still works a program to be whole. We talk openly about the genetic component and the warning signs. Helping them understand alcohol from my personal experience is the easy part. What I find more challenging is helping them understand how not to be afraid of alcohol. We certainly don't shelter our kids. We go to concerts and Mardi Gras and family functions. They see people drink, but to this day, neither of my kids want to see people that they love under the influence. Learning to articulate and live in a world where the pendulum is constantly moving is hard. I know this may not last, but TODAY, both of them are furious when they hear of alcohol related horror stories because they have lived one.

Let me close with this. We each have things that we struggle with. We cannot remove every obstacle for every person in every situation. But what would happen if you began asking the people in your church or family how you could better love them with your actions? Maybe you don't even have to ask. You know something they struggle with and there is an easy step that you can take to be a safe space for them. Let today be the day that we make the first step.

How Did I Get Here?

Do you ever have those moments that stop you dead in your tracks and you immediately ask yourself the question how did I get here? Mine regularly look something like this:

I am sitting in a restaurant. I see a group of early twenty-ish folks joking or laughing or talking pop culture. I eavesdrop (as I do) and realize they are discussing my favorite show or band. I charmingly smile in their direction and when one of them engages my gesture, I chime in with a cute antidote or tidbit of new information WITHOUT FAIL, one of them looks in my direction and gives me a placating smirk. At this point, I usually turn my attention back to my original table that almost always includes a teenager or a group of middle aged women or a handsome man with charming grey accents in his hair.

I'm that lady.

Beacuse in my mind, I am 24. How did I become the SUV driving mom of two teenagers, married for 18 years and proudly supporting the use of wrinkle cream and hair dye? It was just yesterday that I was dancing at DV8 in my black mini skirt and using all my nonexistent hair coolness to copy Jennifer Aniston, right? Everything in me still tells me that I could hang with those cool kids.

I have been a parent for 15 years and I still find it hard to believe that I am responsible enough to be trusted with the life of another human. I have purchased cars, bought and paid off a house and faithfully contributed to 401k and college savings, but I still cannot wrap my mind around the fact that my life is grown-up enough to necessitate a life insurance policy. How did this happen?

Here is what I know. I woke up. I lived. I went to sleep. For the last 6,576 days I have repeated this process and here I am. Somedays have been more productive than others. Sometimes, I have survived rather than thrived. But I have adult-ed. Through hard days and great days, I have faced the adult tasks and decisions that came my way.

Maybe it is not your age, but what makes you ask this question? Is it a looming decision? Is it a gut knowledge that you are headed in the wrong direction? Or maybe, it is the complete opposite. Perhaps you woke up this morning and you looked at the person in the bed with you and asked this same question because you know this life could have gone a billion other ways and you are so very grateful. 

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
- Joseph Campbell

Today, I am going to excitedly live into the adventure of being 41. I like the person that I am today so much better than the 24 year-old version. I hope I can say the same of the journey of the next 17 years.

Ycal

When I was a teenager, I spent most of my energy thinking that I was doing it wrong. 'It' consisted of anything that was happening in my life. I was not a stellar student. I was not an athlete. I was not popular. I was not a cheerleader. I could not sing. With a little perspective, I realize that I was not doing EVERYTHING wrong. But I am still not an athlete.

As a young married woman, I struggled in the kitchen. I wanted to cook for Lucas because I thought that is what I was supposed to do. But I don't like cooking. I really don't appreciate any part of the kitchen. Well, maybe the freezer. It holds ice cream.

As a new mom, I thought nothing that I ever did would compare to the mothers that had come before me. My mom's crafting and party throwing and creativity are second to none. My MIL's hospitality and cooking and patience, well they are out of my league. The ability of one of my friends to calm a crying infant, that was not my gift. Another's inhuman capability to function on no sleep...I can't.

My 4th decade has given me a gift. In the last two years, I have embraced what I AM, rather than dwelling on what I am not. Sure, I have things that I don't like. I have things that I don't do well. I also have things that I just plain avoid because they drain all of the fun and life and love out of me. And, I don't apologize for not doing these things anymore.

I still don't like the kitchen, but people in my house like to eat. Sometimes I will craft with food, but more times than not, my hubs is the chef or we eat out. Not sorry. I have embraced that I don't do mornings. I mean, like, not unless I absolutely have to. My Yeti cup says "Caffeine before adulting." The adequate caffeine level (even if started at 6:45am) to make sound and sane decisions is safe for the public by 10am. Before that, there are no guarantees.

There was a time that I would guilt myself for not having morning meditation and prayer. Here's the truth. God does not like what I have to say about sunrises or chirping morning sparrows or breakfast. My zone is 2pm-10pm. I'm good to go in these hours. I can stretch as late at midnight and have great production. So I let myself off the hook. Jesus and I can talk at 10:30pm, too.

Today, my husband assembled a new toy. He ordered a robot to clean the pool. As it was happily working and he was in awe of its production, I asked him, "What are you going to name your robot? I think Lacy would be lovely, seeing how hard it is working."

Without skipping a beat, he smirked and said, "I'm calling it Ycal (ya KAL)." Puzzled, I stared curiously in his direction as he giggled, "It the opposite of Lacy!"

20 years ago, a statement like this would have sent me to therapy. Really, it would have. Today, I know that this man loves me dearly, messes and all. I suck at cleaning. I leave a trail of shoes and styrofoam cups in my wake. Most days, you can find my jewelry, shoes, purse and cups surrounding my chair. The truth is I don't even notice.

What I have learned is that some people see clutter and some don't. I TRY to love Lucas by forcing myself to see my trail of existence. I TRY to close cabinets in the kitchen. I TRY to take my trash downstairs from the bedroom. But these are not things that I see nor do they bother me.

We could have a super clean house and dinner on the table every night, but my kids would miss out on other things. When God made my brain to want to play with paint and glue and color and creativity, it may have spilled over into the spot in my brain where I see mess. When I was gifted with the desire to teach and invest in healing and be dangerously present in helping people, the time and energy that those things cost are more important to me than straightening the laundry room.

The beauty of my 40s is that I am so very ok with this. I'm married to a man that likes order and neatness and structure. He needs me to bring some chaos and whimsical silliness to the mix. We love that we are so different and we don't have to change to be perfect for each other. I won't ever clean the pool, so I am thankful that he now has a Ycal. He won't ever make a wreath or paint with me, so he embraces that there is one room in the house that is going to be creatively cluttered.

The trick is knowing who we are, what we are created for and sharing life with people who are not like us. We don't need two Lacy's in this house! We have enough creative, loud, passionate vibes from me. I need the calm, wise, levelheaded strength of my sidekick. That requires something that I think this world is lacking - love and tolerance. When we embrace what we ARE rather than trying to make others into what we want them to be, we add to the richness of this journey.