Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns
If you think Jesus would have come into your home that day and not issued a strong rebuke to the head of household, you are mistaken. These words of condemnation have been haunting me for days now. They aren’t all that different than the soundtrack I play in my head on an almost-daily basis. It’s…
I am nesting. On Saturday I emptied the refrigerator. Last summer’s homemade pickles in their jars. The bread ends that seem to multiply on every shelf. The eggs. The milk. The fruit and veggies. All of it sat on the floor or the counter as I carefully removed the shelves and wiped them down with…
I’ve heard that life is like a highway. And it definitely seems like that sometimes. The pace of life swirls around me at dizzying speeds. We’re all so busy. In such a hurry. Always somewhere to be, something else to do. I’m a get-to-the-point, get-there-quick kind of girl. I don’t like to waste time on…
Swimming lessons is a highlight of my 3-year-old’s week. In recent weeks, her teacher has been taking the kids to the deep end to jump off the blocks. Last week, I walked down there to encourage my daughter. I almost lost my nerve to keep her in swimming lessons at all.
The deep end scares me a little. I’m not a strong swimmer. I need the security of touching bottom while keeping my head above water. So seeing my little girl, with her backpack floatie wrapped around her torso, in all that water, makes me feel a little vulnerable. And helpless.
Maybe that’s a good thing.
Spiritually speaking, the deep end scares me a little, too. But I’m encouraged and inspired after reading Gordon MacDonald’s latest book Going Deep.
He opens with this quote from Richard Foster:
“The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.”
Going Deep is both a work of fiction and a guidebook for ministry. In it MacDonald revisits the fictional New England church he created for Who Stole My Church? and what I love about these two books is that they read like fiction but with such realism that I forget the church and its congregants aren’t real. I find myself wishing I could visit this church and meet these people. (As a side note: I did get to meet MacDonald a few weeks ago. I hadn’t yet finished the book, but it was a joy to shake his hand and pass along my feelings about his writing.)
MacDonald and his fictional congregation take a journey to discover how to grow deep people — people who can make a difference not only in their church but in their communities and the world. The book is subtitled “becoming a person of influence” — that’s attractive. Who wouldn’t want to know that their life had influenced someone else’s for the better.
The catch is this: depth is not achieved easily or quickly. Maybe that’s a “duh” statement, but I was humbled and challenged by what the group learns about themselves and each other and the standard of commitment they held to.
As my husband prepares to finish seminary in the spring, becoming a deep person, a person of influence, holds great appeal. Beyond that, it’s a noble pursuit. But the people MacDonald chooses in the book to “go deep” are just that — chosen. They don’t apply or put their names in a hat or sign up. Others nominate them based on their lives and character qualities. I had to wonder if I’d be chosen.
And I’m thirsty for a teacher like MacDonald and his wife to pour into the lives of those who are younger — both in age and spiritual maturity.
Going Deep is high on my list of recommended books to read and, like Who Stole My Church?, will be a book I read often for spiritual insight, encouragement and refreshment.
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In exchange for my honest review, I received a free copy of Going Deep from Thomas Nelson through BookSneeze.
I just don’t know what to do with Halloween.
As a kid, and a teenager, it was a fun time to dress up, visit the neighbors and take in all the candy we could eat while trick-or-treating. It was social and mostly innocent and hey, everybody did it, didn’t they?
Now I have kids. And they like to dress up. And they like chocolate and candy and doing what their friends do. And I like those things, too, for the most part.
But there’s this battle inside me. And I can’t ignore it.
Soon, I will have to choose.
My kids did not go trick-or-treating tonight. (They’re 3 1/2 and 2, so they’ll get over it.)
I have many reasons why they didn’t.
Selfish reasons, such as:
And not so selfish ones.
Like what this writer, whom I respect and admire, experienced on Halloween one year and how she overcame it. I don’t want to live my life in fear, but I don’t want to celebrate fear or participate in it, either.
Or this bit of information about who suffers so I — and my kids — can enjoy chocolate anytime we want. Sickening. And thought-provoking. Once I know something, it’s hard to go back to the way life was before. Can I enjoy a piece of chocolate if I think about the hands that picked the beans?
Then, there’s the pressure, as a Christian, to shun Halloween because of the evil associated with it. Or the pressure to “redeem” it by giving kids positive, non-scary influences on Halloween. (Confession: I’ve handed out Bible verses with candy in previous years, mostly to justify participating in Halloween at all.)
One of my clearest memories of Halloween as a child was the time my brother, my best friend (a guy) and I went to a house with no outside lights on. I know, biggest Halloween faux pas and definitely not on any safety list for Halloween. But the people who lived there were my grandparents’ age. I’d just met them — through my grandparents, maybe — and they lived sort of in our neighborhood. It was a whim. A whim I’d later regret. But we walked up to the door, rang the bell and received a kind-but-stern lecture on not ringing people’s doorbells on Halloween if their outside light wasn’t on and oh-by-the-way we don’t celebrate Halloween. I was horrified. Probably more than I would have been if they’d come to the door wearing grim reaper costumes or monster masks.
I don’t want to be those people. I don’t want to suck the life or joy out of anything.
What I do want is to be responsible. As a parent. As a citizen. As a Christian.
My son’s high fever, and subsequent ear infection diagnosis, made the decision not to trick-or-treat, easier tonight. I was relieved, really, that I had a legitimate excuse for not taking them out. In many ways, I’m a coward. I lack conviction. I want to care so deeply and passionately about things that people, even if they don’t agree with my decisions, can understand why I make the decisions I make.
I don’t want to be seen as a taker. As in, I’m taking fun out of my kids’ lives. On short notice, I tried to make up for that by making a special dinner — pumpkin soup with shrimp — and buying candy corn and Turkey Hill ice cream, which had chocolate in it. (Am I a hypocrite or what?) We watched a couple of Halloween kids’ shows on Netflix, which only prompted my daughter to ask when trick-or-treat is.
Sigh.
For now, I hope, this discussion and decision-making process is over. I have a year to gather information and make decisions and try some fair trade chocolate, if I can fit it into our food budget.
There’s a part of me that wants to get this “right.” But sometimes I don’t even know what “right” is. Is it “right” to be a Republican? Or a Democrat? Is it “right” to read Harry Potter novels or the Twilight series or The Hunger Games? Is it “right” to dismiss them as trash? Those are just a few of the other issues I wrestle with that are similar to the Halloween one for me.
“Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.” (Luke 11:42)
Reading these words of Jesus makes me wonder: Can I do what’s “right” and still be doing wrong?
Maybe I’m overthinking. I’ve been known to do that before. Maybe Halloween is no big deal. I mean, after all, the chocolate companies aren’t going to miss my kids’ absence in the trick-or-treating tradition. Nor will they miss my chocolate-buying if I change my habits. And are my kids going to hate me if I tell them they need to stay home when all their friends go trick-or-treating?
Parenting is hard. Parenting with conviction is harder.
I could go on, but I feel like I’d be creating more confusion and less progress toward an answer.
What are your thoughts? On Halloween, on decision-making, on convictions, on right and wrong?
Talk to me. I’m all ears.