Awake My Soul

{excerpts from Shaun Groves', "Awake My Soul"}

Cathedral

Arches of reaching limbs

Crickets sing secret hymns

Over all of us.

Awake my soul to live this moment

Awake my soul, give thanks and hold it

Dear now

God is here now

Awake my soul.

Hush away the hurry

Put to rest the worry

Come to quell and quiet me

In this moment given

Slow and fully live it

Drink up all the passing peace.

Awake my soul to live this moment

Awake my soul,

give thanks and hold it

Dear now

Be here now

Awake my soul.

"Stand in awe,

and sin not...

and be still.

Selah."

-Psalm 4:4

There isn't much "still" about spending a weekend with boisterous boys.

There is, however, a lot of "awake."

This leads me to believe that being still-- this command long revered and chased after by Christians and non-Christians alike-- wasn't ever meant as the end.

It's become that. If I could just get still for a moment, I'd be content. Be still, everyone, and happiness will rush over you. I get to thinking that that's the promise and, honestly, feel a little let down each time I do sit still and feel at best only a little anxiety.

I mean, I'm a happy person with a lot of life all around me and in me. I wouldn't even rank anxiety, fear up there on my list of struggles. But slow all that life down and there I am with past and future bustin' all up into the present with its "what ifs" and "you should haves" and I'm supposed to just sit there? And be happy about it?

I mean, I guess I'll do it because I'm supposed to and since disappointment of others is a ranking struggle, but surely He sees the charade, right? And if He does see through the happy to the deep down anxiety then how in the world is He satisfied by my effort to sit because I'm supposed to? And if He is satisfied with me fulfilling that requirement so check-list-ily even as my stillness is bombarded from both directions by the timeline that is my flying-by life-- if He is satisfied with a charade--then is this really a God I want to get still and knowin' about?

Also, what if your weekend, your month, your life just doesn't have room for still because you're responsible for stirring children?

For a booming business?

For stewardship of resources?

For cash flow?

For teaching new minds?

It's like we spend time trying to find a loophole to get out of the supposed "still" requirement and once we've convinced ourselves we've found the perfect excuse we start wondering what's so awesome about a God who allows such loopholes.

It's a letdown when you feel like you don't have the time to be the good Christian that sits still and ponders the supposedly awesome God* you believe in. It's an even scarier letdown when you do find the time to be still and feel far from the peace and happiness that should, supposedly, result from obedience to this long revered and chased after command.

*I say "supposedly" awesome God not because I don't believe He is awesome but because supposedly means "presumed to be true, but without proof" and sometimes our own hurried lives are all we have to go on in terms of "proof." Though we presume, believe He is worthy of awe, the hurry robs us of personal evidence.

Oh but I should, so I'll hurry to be still. As if it is the end to be achieved.

Robbing myself, really, of the real end.

Which is life.

Not the kind on either side of the present saying "should have" and "what if." Not the timeline.

Life.

Psalm 46 is a chaotic chapter of the Bible. He doesn't say "be still and get happy." The psalmist gives account of all the turmoil happening and ends it not with a promise of happiness but a near chastisement-- God saying "I've got this." I and not you.

A means to understanding this is to sit back and watch as I take care of what you'll entrust back to me. Remove yourself from the action and take moments to trust. Persevere in trust long enough to find me faithful in the action.

With so much emphasis on being still and the assumed, empty promise of happiness, I begin to miss the better, way more fulfilling side of the equation. The faithfulness in all of the action.

By all means, be still. He wouldn't have commanded it if it wasn't wise council. I do believe it is a mark of strengthened character to be able to sit and wrestle thoughts-- a strength I often can't muster up for myself.

It's not about mustering. It's about awakening.

I'm missing the faithfulness in action. There's going to be little comfort in knowing He's God while I'm still if I don't know him as God while I'm living the activity.

When I watch these boys wrestle on the green and skip rocks on the water I notice they certainly aren't still, but they also aren't hurried-- they're energized.

Hurried grasps for time, operates from weaning strength.

Energized takes advantage of time, operates from momentum.

Hurried is groggy.

Energized is awake.

Hurried lives a timeline.

Energized lives a life.

As creator of my every moment, God brings to each moment a strength I could not muster on my own. In sustaining each moment, he shows himself faithful. Gratitude for that faithfulness has the power to propel me-- it gains momentum, sustains me. Keeps me awake.

I'll continue to acknowledge God in the unsure, oft-bombarded moments of stillness.

But I want even more to awaken to the ways He acknowledges me in moments lived.

That I wouldn't be sitting anxiously before a supposedly awesome God.

That I would instead be struck standing, in awe at daily proof-providing moments of faithfulness.

Give thanks and hold it dear now, God is here now. Awake my soul.

On Trust

It was a good day, October 7th.

The more days I have with these kids, the more I learn how inevitable some "bad" days are.

Of course, "bad" is used loosely, really. There is much good to be thankful for even on the days of rolled eyes and foul attitudes and failed attitude adjustments and clingy kindergartners demanding you "look!" every seven seconds.

But October 7th was not one of those days.

It's easier to give thanks and soak up the blessing for the sharing when I'm breathing in fall air, sipping away sweet afternoon refreshments and skipping down sidewalks. Turns out life is sweeter when I'm not so quick to cut moments short by being...well, short.

It helped that on this day the kindergartner wasn't competing with anything or anyone for my attention-- nor I, hers. Undivided attention, you are so illusive and grand.

She jumped in the car that Friday afternoon (Farm Day!). Stuffed chicken in arms, all cowgirl chic, she immediately took to reminding me, "It's special snack day!" (we're in the process of coming up with a cooler name...). 

"… don't you remember, Sadie?!" 

She's afraid I forgot. Her excited question resonates deeply with me. It smacks of that insecurity I'm convinced affects us all at some point-- or at many points. It is the fear that the one in charge forgot about what means the most to us. 

But I had remembered. 

"I'll give you a choice, Camille. It is totally your decision. We can go to Chick fil A for our usual ice cream cone or we can go to a place I know downtown. It's like the bakery I've shown you before but also has games and tables next to big windows to see outside."

She doesn't even hesitate. 

"Well, I wanna try your place!"

The girl that has to be persuaded into everything now up for anything? I don't question it. "Community Bakery, here we come!" I say pulling out of the carpool line.

She mimics, "here. we. come!" 

(I laugh with her delight even as I consider what a responsibility it is to live so much life around a 5 year old sponge. It's cute when she uses similar expressions of excitement, but what else of my words and attitudes might she be repeating?)

Her continued exuberance brings me necessarily back to the moment. "We're having a girls night! ...right Sadie?"

Gone were the complaints of Thursday afternoon when she learned that her brothers were invited to a party that would leave her abandoned on this Friday night. This "abandoned" Friday, she informed me, was our "BEST DAY YET!" One thing led to another and before I knew it we were home painting our nails and not sweating the laundry, chatting about the exhausting fun we'd had all afternoon at the bakery, the "government's house" (the governors mansion), at my house packing a weekend bag.

You might say that her initial disappointment gave way to our sweetest moments together yet. 

I often say nannying is the best gig, but it isn't at all about the special snack days (...cooler name still pending). It's about the multitude of teaching moments and what I have to learn from them. Children have a way of pointing out that which we adults seem almost determined to miss altogether. My most sincere prayer is that God would humble me ever more to pay attention, to learn the lessons.

The way is unknown to this elementary kid. I don't know the details of the future and when life doesn't shape up the way I'd envisioned, it's often tempting to believe God's forgotten altogether. 

Some days it feels like everyone else got invited to the party and though it seems silly to put ink to that thought (what with the family and the friends and the very best nannying gig), the comparison game nonetheless results in disappointment that has a funny way of making a girl feel forgotten. 

Could it be that our initial disappointment is really an invitation to deep joy? An invitation to the sweetest moments yet? When we rush the moments are we really just holding on to the fear that we've been forgotten and overlooked-- afraid to hope in the possibility of an altogether more satisfying outcome, divinely orchestrated?

He's made it our choice and He won't force our hand. We can take part in the joy, take advantage of the ways life isn't what we'd planned, but only if we care to take the chance of believing there's a better way than we're seeing.

We can trek on down to the metaphorical Community Bakery, trusting his suggestion, knowing nothing but that it's different from what we've done or seen or dreamed before. 

Or, we can safely stick to the Chick fil A vanilla scoop we know to enjoy-- all the while, in the back of our minds, believing that somewhere else, someone else is unfairly getting a better deal and we've been just plain left out.

I just don't want to miss the chutes and ladders, the checkers with a new friend, the candyland, the mini chocolate chip cookies, the petit-fours, the hazelnut coffee, the friendly strangers, the adventures of homes explored, the nail painting-- just because I knew of a safer option where I could hold onto the grudge that my day wasn't comparing to my brothers'. 

If we're honest it can feel pretty good to wallow in losing the comparison game, believing everyone else gets/has/is perfect. Because it's harder to risk embracing the unknown and pursue what truly, ultimately satisfies.

God stands ready with incomparable, unprecedented joy for those willing to believe that He remembers His promises and that our disappointment will ultimately give way to our best days yet. 

I continue to ask the Lord to deepen my belief in the trustworthiness of His recommendation. I want the sweet courage of the 5 year old proclaiming, 

"I wanna try your place."

 16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen,since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

Certificate of Authenticity

Yesterday I was scooting out of the boys' room, determined to get Camille in bed by 8:30.

I rounded the corner, turned back for the wet towel on the floor, hung it on the doorknob and only halfway listened as Jack went on about the Hank Aaron ball he basically cuddles at night. Didn't he understand I was in operation mode for Mission: Bedtime?

His question snapped me out of my hurry. "What does imperfect mean?"

It's not a word he knows to associate with a condition of life he's been increasingly learning since birth-- we all learn.

He undoubtedly knows imperfection, he just doesn't know to call it that.

That I turned back in the middle of my mission to help connect word with concept is truly a testament to how desperate I am to learn a little something myself. The little girl duckling follows me back to the foot of Jack's bed.

"Isn't it in-perfect. Like 'i' 'n' ?"

"No, it's 'i' 'm.' Im-perfect."

"Well, what is it?"

I see him pointing to his baseball's certificate of authenticity. "It means it isn't perfect. It has flaws."

"But it's real," he defends.

"Well of course it is, or you wouldn't have that certificate."

I surprise myself with the next bit and how deeply it resonates-- how I'm even making any sense because we're into baseball collectables territory and I'm very ignorant about most things sports and appraisal- related (here I make a note to pay less attention to the laundry and do more focusing on Pawn Stars during our nightly routine). Back to the thought that rested heavy.

"Don't fret over the label, though. Its imperfections give it its value."

We both think for a few seconds about the implications of that statement and the duckling chides, "Saaaadie."

It's bedtime, you might recall.

"Oh. Like these dents right here? And this scratch? Those are imperfections?"

"Yeah, those are from the ball getting hit-- without the hit it wouldn't be worth as much."

He completes the thought before I have the chance. "And perfect balls don't have any value because they haven't been played with." He's not using his interrogative inflection anymore because give a nine year old a bit of information to guide him in his ignorance and all of the sudden he's the expert and you're dismissed.

And if that dismissal wasn't sobering enough, then the quaint bedtime story with Camille about alligator-eating pythons surely did the trick.

I tucked them all in and tip-toed down the wooden stairs, thankful for 3 beating hearts in 3 cozy beds and the stillness of 9 p.m. on a school night. I perched myself on the couch to watch the Ranger game and got back to thinking of imperfect baseballs finding value and new life as prized possessions.

It's not fun to admit to flaws or enjoyable to take hits.

It's frustrating to think that even the best performance of the night-- the walk off grand slam in the bottom of the 11th-- will yield, in the end, a technically imperfect baseball.

Humbling, most of all, to accept that "perfect" has no value.

"On hearing this, Jesus said to them, 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.'" (Mark 2:17)

To the bruised (yes, even those struck from impossibly good performance)-- those willing to live with faults exposed in shadowbox, with admitted lack of face value, with the technical label of imperfect-- He stands ready with certificate of authenticity, with the worth of redemption, and with love enough to transform scuffed leather into prized possession.

Thank you, Lord.

Conclusions

{July 6}

Library again.

Nothing else quite indicates the passing of time like listening as Parson reads me a book.


Crazy.

This place brings out in me an important quality that I otherwise lack notably: ambition. Here I want to pick up a book and finish it. I want to know more and think more and solidify all those fluid emotions and elusive pangs of the heart into a worldview that best helps me love the world and, most importantly, the people in it.

Here I feel pulled. I might never be smart enough or good enough or experienced enough or ambitious enough to accomplish truly accomplished things. But I know I can feel, think, care, learn, listen. Sitting here, I feel I'm listening best-- at the one place that makes me feel ambitious while simultaneously, physically showing me how much I don't know. It's a forced humility, a literal display of what I've left to learn. That God would care to teach comforts me; that knowledge fills shelves so near nudges me.

I love this place.

Because, alas, time is passing. Beside me Parson sits patiently (though not still because that's a little impossible for a boisterous boy of 6 years), ready to read me something new.

I make a note to remind him he used to rely on me for help sitting up and heating a bottle, just to keep things in perspective.

That's it, perspective. I walk to dictionaries because I can and it sometimes it's fun to take the old-fashioned route. I learn that in science, it means "the appearance of depth in objects. " I read on to find that it also means, "the state of one's ideas, the facts known to one, etc., in having a meaningful interrelationship."

Maybe ambition builds here because perspective seems nearer here. And because ambition turns disastrous if blind, here I feel most compelled to ask God to bring "meaningful interrelationship" to this day. summer. life.

His patience runs thin, the 6 year old's. It's time to read "The Present."

The title is shockingly fitting for my reflections, I think as he begins. Pensive eyes study pages as he works to bring meaning to the script. Ambition is well and good, but as his finger lines the words I can't help but think that perspective means knowing you've got places to go, knowing there's a bigger picture but having the presence of mind to appreciate life presently.

--------------------------------------------------------

We finish the book and he leaps (this is, in fact, his slowest pace) off to the computer. My eyes wander back to my pages. My interest piques when he starts conversation. He thinks he's whispering.


"What school do you go to?" he poses to the braided girl in pink. They're both clicking away at games.

"SSSSHHHHH!" Jackson hurries to intervene. It is true, the tone needed to come down a notch, but that wasn't the impetus for Jackson's equally noisy command.

His concern is for the girl, whom he feels shouldn't be bothered. He seeks to build a wall because he's picking up on the fact that the most socially acceptable move regarding strangers is to leave them be.

"It doesn't matter," he informs Parson. That's an issue, I think. In trying to do right and keep to ourselves, we communicate, one to another that the life and thoughts of the other do not matter. Diana saw the issue and observed, "the biggest disease the world suffers from in this day and age is the disease of feeling unloved."

6 year old wisdom is shushed too soon. He cares about the school. And, in truth, it does matter. To her, and thus to him. Sweet boy.

Jackson cares, too, really. But experience tells him that the best way to care is to maintain boundaries. The philosopher Kant argued that all knowledge is experiential. Sometimes wisdom, though, is unlearning what experience taught.

Most of the time love means stepping across the boundary.

---------------------------------------------------------

{today}

Well, friends, summer is over. The boys go back to school tomorrow, and so this is my last day of 8 hours with straight up humorous, fun-loving, sometimes frustrating, oft-brawling, snack-seeking, precious, ultimately-adoring balls of energy.

We've had a good go of it. (Steve Irwin taught me that expression).

They're still alive and healthy and happy (though I'm apparently Jackson's second best babysitter because I only let them eat at snacktime... ha!). I've further learned what it's like to at least maintain the health and life of two boys on the days when happiness is allusive and they just can't "get right."

Along the way I've tweeted their moments and comments of noteworthy humor or delight, but I fear those will get buried under a pile of tweets as life moves on. Here I'll keep the full record for easy remembering.

Me: Jackson, how'd you get so smart? Jackson: I watch Harry potter

Me: what are y'all doing? J: pro wresting me: I think you have to be "pro" for that. P: well he keeps chunkin my pineapples like a pro

Popcorn with "9 cracks of pepper and precisely 3 pinches of salt" and catching butterflies. Delight!

Am I a terrible babysitter for not seeing a difference between the frog, rocket, popcorn, and bunny dives?

Jackson: "miss Sadie, can you please ground me from the wii so I can't be grounded from anything else?"

Proof that I'm not chuck e cheese dependent. Me: salmon J: noodles P: snap peas

In pool. J: "oh I never took my underwear off. Just as well, this suit doesn't have a net, anyway." I am not familiar with these troubles.

J: just close your eyes P: okay, but I am petrified. At best, I'm apprehensive. (he's SIX, people!)

J: miss Sadie!! Parson has another loose tooth!! (sighs) ... they grow up so fast

Well after 21 years with zero major cuts (unless we count the fish hook), the thumb found competition in a watermelon

Me: "nevadas capital is Carson city." P: "so it's 'parson city' with a 'c'. Critical mistake."

Trying to get a kid to do math on August 2 is like trying to bathe a cat. J: but I'm already terribly smart, miss Sadie. ... I know how to make glue-- get some spit, swirl it around in your belly button with a finger and there you have it. I don't need school!

And now-- "miss Sadie, I don't know how this is happening, but it feels like I have water up my nose and it's too distracting 4 me to work."

P: I just got a bite of burnt on my salmon. Me: I'm sorry, dude. P: that's okay, miss Sadie, you can just try harder next time

Jackson just tried to buy me out of timeout. Coulda made 10 bucks, folks-- hard to pass up, but I managed

P asked me "why is it the J is bigger than me, older than me, had more school than me" an tho I think he was going somewhere deep... ... I chose to start rapping a la Jaden Smith of Never Say Never really loudly. Couldn't resist! Then P finished his sentence, unphased "but I'm still way better at jumping and flipping." I've introduced him to the phrase, "street smart"

J: I really wish there was no school. P: well you also wish I wasn't alive and you could have candy all day, but that's just not real.

These kids think I'm ancient because I can't remember how much "moneys" the tooth fairy left me for my first tooth. @olemisstrudy, help?

After this impromptu trip to walmart, we are the proud owners of Rio. Also, "Miss Sadie, your car is cold for the first time ever."

well my alarm sounded like the beginnings of WWIII in volume and intensity. i blame the 9 year old.

A little QT and a little OT.

Best part of my day is a toss up between lunch with @emilyss2086 and the boys and errands with @StephSmith627 and THE boy (& it's only 5pm!)

Watching march of the penguins with p. Watching one do a mating call, he informs me that the penguin is "attempting contact." well... Yes.

A few weeks ago I took some pictures of the boys for their dad's birthday gift, and I jumped in a few. This is what photography looks like with a 9 and 6 year old behind the lens.

(he's not pained because he's having to take pictures, but rather because it took approx. 5 minutes for Parson to find the button to push... learning.) ;)



This is the result of efforts to get one of us all together.







Thus concludes another summer of learning about life and laughing at it, kids in tow.

That's Just Life, Boo

I honest to goodness can't think of much else I love more than Sunday mornings at this house. Or wherever home happens to be on a given Sunday morning (it seems to be changing a lot these days!). Dad always prefers the earliest service, a preference that works conveniently with our "high gear" plan of attack for painting and moving into our new home. So a 7:30 7:55 a.m. wake up call it was. Emily is right every time: getting out of the bed is the hardest part. I realized today that it's mostly my favorite morning because everyone is getting ready together-- so I can use Em's hair dryer and Mom's perfume and sit with Dad to drink coffee (he always has the most down time).

"What were we thinking with the early service. Let's just go later and get back in bed..." I moan between sips. Mom scoots in the kitchen, hair as unkempt as the rest of us (Dad's an outlier), eyes squinted, head nodding, pointing in my direction as if my thought solidified where breath vanished.

We aren't morning people.

The doctors chime in about how it's best and "c'mon, just get started" and inevitably, unconsciously that Tracy Morgan Brian Fellow line slips off someone's tongue: "Let's get goooiiiiinnggg." We scatter. There's splashing and singing and brushing and blow drying and the faint hum of the Dr. Mario wii game as Dad has yet time to spare. He gets serious about getting ready around 'bout the time he gives us the fifteen minute warning, which can be truly alarming if you aren't yet to blow drying, but only for those people with hair (which, at this point, technically includes Truett because that dude has some hair). The three dogs bounce back and forth between bathrooms like ping pong balls in an epic tournament a la Forrest Gump.

We encourage each other.

"I'll put the dogs up!" "Your hair looks great!" "Mom, I like that outfit!" "Look at my beautiful girls!" "Anyone seen my Bible? ... Yeah! Its..." There are "thank yous" to accompany each bit, however tiny, of encouragement or help.

I think I noticed it especially this morning, these little interactions, because it's just an extension of life over the past couple of days. Painting and house stuff can get tedious and daunting and frustrating when you cannot, for the life you, get that stupid line straight. Or you can't get the right color. Or when fan blades don't fit the fan. Or when the outlet tries to kill shocks you. We cope by giving each other shout outs.

"You're doing so good, Sadie!" "Good job, Mom!" "I'm running to Lowes, does anybody need anything?" "Can I fix anyone a drink? It's looking great!"

(My response to that last one, whilst already slapping on the first coat of paint in the master bedroom, was "Momma. I will paint your bedroom for you if you get me some Sweet Tea.")

We may be overcompensating for the amount of work with the amount of support dished out, but we'd rather be safe than sorry. Meaning we'd rather be overly kind than cranky-- that's just not the saying. And it doesn't always work out this way in other times of life, this generosity with the compliments and gratitude. There's just something about Sunday mornings and big projects that bring it out in full force. (No wonder it's these times that we miss the Smith family 2.0 so much).

When there's a task at hand-- be it getting to church on time (ish) or a dining room in need of some lime green paint-- we do what we know best to get it done. That's life.

I have the opportunity to nanny this summer in Little Rock for a family I've known almost 6 years. They have a pool and some super soakers and a buncha water balloons and so I basically get paid to be a kid (that is also like a mom and like a maid). Jennifer Francis pointed out to me that I'm living so rough this summer. It is hard when the boys want to play in the front yard with water balloons but that means leaving the nice pool in the backyard. All of this conflict, I can't stand it!

Seriously, though, I learn so much from a 9 and 6 year old that I just couldn't get at a desk job-- things that are truly important to conceptualize and know and hold onto as I do this journeyman process that I might only grasp when coming from elementary minds. I think God knows this about me-- and so I am extremely grateful for this time to learn to use my time and my thoughts diligently. I don't always do it gracefully or with great tact (or, as evidenced by my mostly empty journal for the month of May, at all), this mindful note taking during God's teaching moments with me.

Each time I return to my commitment to pay attention, to "look with your eyes," as little me admonished Dad long ago, I begin by apologizing to God for my leave of absence. What I realized especially this past time is that, as sorry as I am to God for disregarding the purpose He gives my days, I'm mostly sorry because I miss out when I don't try at all. So imperfect as my pursuit may be of finding and applying biblical principles in daily life, it beats the heck out of indifference.

So there I am Thursday afternoon, in the middle of my hard life, lounging on the sofa whilst the boys play the Kung Fu panda game. The eldest boy, Jackson loves to play in versus mode, challenging his brother to a duel. But a fight to the death between a 6 and 9 year old doesn't bode well for a certain younger brother. Every time Parson gets defeated and every time he asks that they play as a team against the bad guys but every time Jackson most desires the thrill of winning, even though it has to get old after the 65th time, right? He loves the duel, because he knows he'll come out on top. Everything is a competition at this stage of their brotherhood, which must get exhausting for a little brother with very little battles to win.

"JACKSON!!!!!" Parson yells. I look over with disapproval of his tone. Little brother eyes catch mine. "...please," he offers, and I nod. "Please go easy on me." The round isn't over yet, so his plea is quick and desperate. The life meter blinks red, more urgent with every new punch. Older brother pays no regard, will not relent. "PLEASE!!!"

"I can't go easy on you," Jackson begins to explain with all of the wisdom he can muster from his 9 years. "That's just life, boo." The truly charming pet name is meant to offer sensitivity to an otherwise rigid, tough, tried and true concept-- life isn't fair.

Later, in the pool, I sit quietly, bemoaning my unfortunate station I suggest to the boys that they time my lap. Oh, but life is a competition. I can't swim for individual performance's sake-- there have to be clear stakes of winning and losing. Jackson challenges me. "I'll race ya!"

"Alright," I concede. "On the count of three. One, two..."

"But MISS SADIE," his tone is urgent, as if to catch me before my attention zeroes in on the finish line. Who does he think I am, Michael Phelps?

"Yeah, bud?"

"Go easy on me."

The irony isn't lost on me. The mighty age of nine loses its advantage when up against 21. It's easy to brush it off as "just life" until "just life" happens to you, and it costs you the backyard championship title of "faster than Sadie." (Which, coincidentally, isn't that grand of an achievement since I'm pretty out of shape and a terrible back-stroker). The sad news is that I didn't really need to go that easy on him to level out the playing field. Money well spent on those swim lessons, Simmons parents.

I used the moment to explain Parson's thoughts on playing versus on the Wii and how its just not as fun when you come up the loser.

The competitive stuff is, for now, just a phase. And it is important to note that these boys genuinely adore each other when it comes down to it. I also realize that there is such thing as healthy competition and learning to be a good sport.

But, if we aren't careful, this competition seeps into adult life, well beyond the phase in which it belongs. It isn't confined to areas of healthy competition or channeled into a Wii game. It becomes a mindset that keeps us from enjoying others doing their best because we get busy thinking of how we'll measure up. When you're nine and you want to race your babysitter in a swim competition, that's one thing. But then what happens when you grow up and get so caught up in winning at life that you forget to encourage others along in it? We enter a day like Jackson enters a round-- if life is measured by win or lose, we want to look good winning. So then we pick comfortable battles that we know we can win by ourselves-- like a 9 year old challenges a 6 year old-- even though that has to get old, right? Battles that we may have the upper hand in from our vantage point, but that look downright silly to One who sees the situation for what it really is-- like the 21 year old who sees the 65 games of versus as the desperate attempt at glory and bragging rights that it really is.

But that's just life, boo. Victory for some, defeat for others. You just have to deal.

Do we? Because all I see in this lifelong back and forth, these versus rounds we get ourselves into with other people, these settling situations we put ourselves in because we know we can win them, is pride on one side and distress on the other. What if life could be a bit more like Parson's preferred model. "Let's just play us against the bad guys." What if we teamed up, us against the challenges of life. What if Christians stopped thinking of non-Christians as "bad guys." What if we stopped sizing people up as competition?

Oh, I beat her in looks.
Oh, she's so much smarter than me.
I cannot be as friendly as her.
I can't believe she got that car.
Girls take way longer to get ready.
Sadie got a spot on the ceiling again. I could do this so much better.

No, I don't think the winning and the losing is just life. I don't think we have to take on projects that we can finish in our own ability. I think people are better and worse at certain things, for sure. I think there will be better and worse times. Richer and poorer people. Healthy and sick people. But I don't think we have to be against each other.

What I love about a Sunday morning or a home project is that my family members are with each other. We are members-- parts that form a whole only when working together. That's life, boo. Part of what entices me into mission work is that I'm not content to sit and watch it work for this family, taking in the benefits of that for myself. I want it so badly for the world around me, that cohesion. That support and encouragement.

I want my non-Christian friends to know that my value is not contingent on how well--or not well-- they're living their lives and how much better I can do. My worth is not in comparison to their supposed non-worth as "worldly sinners." My holy life is not in mighty contrast to their unholy life. That, friends, I am finding, is entering myself into a game I know I can win by my own standards. But my value is through Christ. My worth in him is only in comparison to my own non-worth as a worldly sinner. My holy life, the one I strive for so imperfectly, is in contrast to my unholy life that I only really began noticing when God illuminated it with grace.

God, the metaphorical 21 year old who must shake his head at these competitions we've set up so we can win. Or worse, so we can make others lose. These competitions we've passed off as life, when he knows, he knows that's not life.

And He says it again and again in his word. Just as my disapproving looks are supposed to warn Parson of his hateful tone and express displeasure with Jackson's self-serving spirit.

^"8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. ⁹ For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. ¹⁰ He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. ¹¹ Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

¹² Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in the Lord and who admonish you. ¹³ Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other. ¹⁴ And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. ¹⁵ Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.

¹⁶ Rejoice always, ¹⁷ pray continually, ¹⁸ give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. ¹⁹ Do not quench the Spirit. ²⁰ Do not treat prophecies with contempt ²¹ but test them all; hold on to what is good, ²² reject every kind of evil. ²³ May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁴ The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it."

-1 Thessalonians 5: 8-24

That's life, boo. And self, you've got to be living it.