Peacocks and Graffiti.

Both creative expressions, beautiful in their own ways. Both tell a story.

Made by human hands, graffiti is a passionate plea to be seen and heard. Whereas the peacock is a humble, majestic expression of our creator’s hand.

Both tell a different story, both beautiful in their own ways.

The past few months, I have been thinking about how fortunate I am to be able to tell stories. Hearing only bits and pieces of the big picture, I am drawn in immediately and captivated by the courage people have to share their life. I think everybody wants to know that their life has meaning, that their story matters.

Being a writer of other’s stories has made me wonder what mine would look and sound like from the outside. When you are busy living your life, it’s hard to know what others see and what others can glean from your life. It is what I hear most when I interview someone: “I didn’t think anyone would care?” “I didn’t know that anything I was doing mattered?” People living their lives unaware that they are affecting others.

Graffiti

Graffiti gets noticed. It tells a story in loud, vibrant colors, letters and shapes. There is no denying it. It won’t be hidden behind a rock but it will command your attention from the side of an overpass or dumpster. The story is man-made. I know a little something about man-made stories. Much of my athletic career is a man-made story. I worked hard and scrapped for every bit of success I set my mind to. I set goals, I met goals.

When I was just ten years-old, I saw the University of Texas women’s volleyball team play and was in awe. I wanted to be just like them. Powerful, athletic, strong women. I immediately found my idols. I soon discovered that some of them were called “All-Americans.” Right then and there, I needed to know what that was.

As soon as I figured that out, I was determined to be one. I didn’t really know how I was going to get there, but I was going to be one. To be called an All-American some day shaped my story at a young age. Although there is no denying that God can use every single bit of our story, this part of my story is mostly man-made. Bent on success and pursuing a single solitary goal for me and me alone, I was driven to be successful as defined by the world. It didn’t disappoint.

The Peacock

The Peacock gets noticed. It tells a story in loud, vibrant colors. There is no denying it. It won’t be hidden behind a rock, but will command your attention by spreading his majestic feathers. With a thousand little eyes, the peacocks feathers tell a story of creation – of beauty. The story is created.

Over the past fifteen or so years, writing has been a hobby of sorts. Always one to prefer essays to multiple choice tests, writing was just a better way for me to get information to my professors. I struggled to choose just one good answer on a multiple choice test, but words? Words opened up the information I had stored in my head and allowed me to express it much better.

Most of the writing I do now has come to me because of persistence and hard work. But mostly I think a created story in progress. The writing part of my story is not man-made. It is created. All of my experiences as an athlete, marriage and family therapist intern, wife, mother, Christian and now CrossFitter (yeah, I just said that) have come together to become bits and pieces of a bigger story – also in progress.

You see, I’ve always wanted my story told by man. I wanted to know what people thought and what they would say about me. But now, I don’t care too much about that. God is busy telling my story and God doesn’t need words to tell it effectively.

He doesn’t need a paint can and he doesn’t need the cover of night to tell the world about me. He can tell my story with humility and grace and truth and hope. When we surrender to the story being told by our creator, it unlocks serious power in our lives.

My power is telling people’s stories. I am ridiculously humbled and grateful to get to do that. It makes me the happiest.

This is my #tbt (throw back thought).

Last week I was speaking with my brother about one of my posts. He reads them, maybe not all of them but he does read them which is cool because in 1986 my sister and I convinced him to use his allowance money to buy the Bon Jovi “Slippery When Wet” album instead of some cool toy he wanted. So naturally, I thought maybe he still had not forgiven me (who even thinks that?).

But it’s all good, it appears that he holds no grudges and that he also still knows all the words to “You Give Love a Bad Name.” Believe it or not this has a lot to do with what we were talking about. We were discussing the issue of grace. Wait, what?

Anyway, he had just read my post “Flightless Bird, Thrashing Deer” and said that he felt the ending was incomplete. I used the word “undone.”

I agreed with his points. I had ended the post quickly mostly because I already rambled on about my animal characters and I wanted a quick way to finish it. The issue left undone was the issue of grace. I said this:

“Girls, ladies, mommies, friends, sisters we all deserve grace. If we ground ourselves because we are afraid of flight it’s because we don’t accept grace. If we thrash and buck because we are afraid of the still, quiet pain then we don’t accept grace. It’s crazy because grace is free and we still think we have to earn it or pay for it or do something amazing, supermom-ish worthy to get it. We don’t.”

Here’s what we agreed on: we actually do not deserve grace at all. It is because we don’t deserve it that makes it so elusive and such a hard for our human minds to grasp. Things we can earn, like money, or things we deserve, like dignity, seem a little easier because they are less abstract concepts. We certainly have a very skewed concept of how to give ourselves grace, which means we have an even harder time offering it to others. Let me see if I can explain myself and try to articulate what I meant to say the first time. Of course, I have a story.

When I was in my Master’s program we had psychotic professors. Well, psychotic is kind of a heavy word. They were really smart, gracious people who taught us psychotic things. Things like how to diagnose ourselves with personality disorders, various mood disorders and trichotillomania. Wait, what? Okay, that was just me. But anyway we learned a ton about how to be better therapists and we also learned a lot about our own processes and our own pathology. Basically, we got emotional boot camp and a peek into why we do the things we do for the very small price of “still paying it off.”

Having been a stellar collegiate athlete and a successful corporate professional I was, of course, perfect (clue number one into my pathology). But underneath this perfection was of course, insecurity (clue number two – not as obvious to me as evidenced by the thought that I was, of course, perfect).

Enter craziest (and probably one of the best) professors in my program. I have forgotten the exact details of the assignment, but we were asked to complete a series of questions. Questions, I believe, that had nothing to do with anything (again, crazy professors). Once we completed the “assignment” we were asked to give ourselves a score. We could give ourselves any score based of what we thought we deserved.

ANY SCORE…LIKE A 100. I could give myself a 100.

I gave myself a 50 something.

Here was my logic. I hadn’t really tried very hard on this “assignment.” I wasn’t going to give myself a 100 because nobody deserves a 100 (except the narcissists in our class who did indeed give themselves a 100) and based on my athletic background if you don’t try really hard and you haven’t given 120% then you are nowhere even near the ball park of 100. I also thought I had no clue what I was talking about so I figured better than half, but not good enough to be in the 70’s or 80’s. The professor then began to ask each of us out loud what score we gave ourselves and he proceeded to write that number in his little grade book. That was the grade of our first assignment for the class. It comprised almost half of our grade for the semester.

When he got to me and I gave my score, I was mortified. Mostly because out of everyone in the class I was THE ONLY PERSON WHO GAVE MYSELF A FAILING GRADE! Who even does that? A very insecure person hiding behind the guise of perfection, that’s who. I pleaded with my professor at the end of class to let me change my grade. He let me change it and do you know what? I STILL COULDN’T GIVE MYSELF AN “A!” Are you freaking serious? He kind of laughed and said “you still couldn’t give yourself an “A.”

Hearing that stung. Of course perfect people don’t cry, so I didn’t do that in front of my teacher. I waited until I got into my car and then the floodgates opened. With all the things I thought were perfect in my life, clearly they were very far from perfect. Far from 100. Far from 80. Far from 70. I allowed little room for error and when something wasn’t 100 it was failing. Ugh. Let’s put it this way I processed that grade and the entire concept of grace the rest of my time in that program. I processed it after I graduated. And when I got married I still processed it. And then when I had my children I still processed it and you know what in the world nipped it right in the bud? Jesus.

The concept of grace is such a hard one to grasp that only God himself can explain it by offering it to us for free. The trick is that we have to accept it. That is the hardest part of the lesson. There comes a time in everyone’s life when you choose to be real or you choose to grade yourself. Whether you give yourself a 100 or a 50 being real gives you a starting point. We all have to start somewhere. We have to begin with the grades we have been giving ourselves and we have to put them on God’s gracing system. I will never be the person who will just give up or not try because I know God’s grace is right there to catch me. That is so not my style.

To that extent, I will probably always wrestle with the balance of perfection and grace. But grace means that I no longer have to grade myself or be graded by others and that is a huge relief. I like God’s gracing system much better than my self-imposed grades.

And guess what? I think this post is still undone.

It’s hard to notice little tiny treasures these days. Like really notice them. Being a third generation (probably longer) process-oriented, project-managing, flow-charting, editing, linear-thinking person it is easy for me to bypass tiny treasures on a daily basis. But over the years, I have trained myself to see the beauty and the art in each and every day. And let’s face it, Instagram helps. Filters are magical.

I am really glad I have taken this practice to heart because when you are a process-oriented, project-managing, flow-charting, editing, linear-thinking person you tend to notice what is wrong or out of place before you notice all the things that are right. This goes there. No, that goes over there. Wait, that’s wrong. Hmmm, something is missing. What is missing? Give me a second…oh, got it – that should be orange, no wait…red. Yeah, definitely red.

As per usual, I was in a rush this morning to get myself and the kids out of the house in time to drop them off at school then hit the gym. I might add that this schedule is not my normal schedule and the margin for error in this kind off-process schedule is very low. Everything needs to go absolutely perfect in order for me to hit my marks.

Mornings are hectic. On most mornings, I wake up at 5:20 a.m. to hit my 6:00 a.m. CrossFit class that is about twelve minutes from my house. I can hit this schedule like clockwork four days a week. Today, however, my husband needed to leave early so that meant I needed to take a later class. One that runs right up against my drop off time at the kids’ school – which means my process is way off. When my process if off, all hell breaks loose. But despite the threat of hell breaking loose, I still managed to leave the house early to ensure that I would get everyone settled at school and then sneak to the back of the class and blend in.

All 5’11” of me.

Sneaking in to the back of the class.

That is well underway.

Think I made it? I count zero hands.

I was late by eleven minutes and I didn’t blend in. Actually, the coach was kind enough to call me out. To which I responded with attitude due to the fact that I was defensive AND guilty of being late. To which I then had to apologize for said attitude because I was in fact late and that was my problem, not his. But this is not about THAT…

What IS this about?

Oh yeah, so as I was rushing around this morning (before being late) trying to get myself ready for the gym I reached into my makeup bag for my “lip stuff.” I don’t know what to call a small tube of Aquaphor except “lip stuff” because it isn’t glossy so it isn’t lip gloss and it isn’t tinted so it’s not lipstick and it’s not really chapstick or lip balm – so, “lip stuff” it is. Anyway, it was missing. All my tubes of lip stuff, lip stick, lip gloss, chapstick, what have you go missing on a regular basis. I have a little bitty princess that likes to take the “lippies” and put them all over her face kind of like the Joker. Not the perfectly drawn Jack Nicholson “Joker,” but the smudgy, psychotic Heath Ledger (Rest in Peace) “Joker.” It’s quite nice.

I searched all the usual areas where she hides my things and finally glanced over to her little princess dressing table. No “lip stuff,” but sitting perfectly on her little dressing table were my blush and brush. I stopped rushing around and in an instant a little smile spread across my face (not a Joker smile, just a regular smile).

A tiny little treasure for me to see.

I stopped all my rushing around and just sat on the edge of her bed and uncovered another kind of treasure. One that doesn’t just bring a smile to your face, but one that warms your heart. You have to search a little harder for these kinds of buried treasures, but they are there. They are everywhere.

The treasure I uncovered is that my daughter is watching me. She is watching everything that I do. When she is bossy and demanding it is because she has first seen it in me. When she is kind and compassionate and offering to help a friend, it is because she has first seen it in me. When she stands up for herself against her big brother or the kid in class who is being mean to her, she has seen me set boundaries and take care of myself too. I know it isn’t a perfect science and so much of what I do as a  mother will not be revealed to me until she is grown and on her own. But today, that little tiny treasure that brought a smile to my face – and the subsequent buried treasure that I sat on the edge of her bed and discovered just by being still and quiet – was a glimpse of the work I have already put in.

Find your tiny treasures even when the mornings are rushed and the evenings are spent and then dig a little deeper to find the buried meaning in the beauty that you have found. Keep in mind that not all treasures will seem beautiful to begin with, we have to train our eyes to see them and practice looking every day.

I’m insecure.

There. I said it. Shocker.

I’m not insecure about the usual suspects. Like, I don’t worry about how dirty my house is (it is), or if my kids are put together (they aren’t) or even if I haven’t had a chance to shower this morning (I haven’t).

I know I’m not the strongest or fastest person at the gym. I don’t even try to compete with PTA caliber moms (I know my place) and I don’t have a Pinterest account (the horror). I am awkward (so what). I babble and talk about myself when I speak to people I admire (so, so charming).

But the biggest area of insecurity and where I feel like I’m just not up to snuff is my spirituality.

Listen. I know I am saved. I know I am a Christian. I know where I am going when I die, but for some reason, I feel insecure that I am not somehow the female version of Joel Osteen.

I am confident that God has a plan for me. I am confident in my salvation and believe me there is no shortage of pride in many other areas of my life, but when it comes to being enough as a Christian, I feel like I should just leave the heavy lifting to the professionals.

To the nice people. To the people without sarcasm. To the people who don’t wear Lululemon speed shorts to bible study. To the people who memorize scripture and keep their bibles in their cars. To the people who don’t know all the words to “Paul Revere,” (God bless the Beastie Boys) but all the words to every worship song. To the people I admire and babble around.

I feel like I should leave the heavy lifting to them, but I know that I am called to do my own kind of heavy lifting. After all, my insecurity does not come from anything they are doing or not doing, it comes right from me. It’s between me and…me.

But insecurity is the opposite of faith. Insecurity doesn’t get anything done for the kingdom of God or for anyone else and so therefore, despite being insecure, I am going to keep on doing what I do.

We all have something to lift.

We have an adjustment problem in our house.

My husband does not travel often, but from time to time he does need to be away for business. In fact, we just got done with a week without Daddy and my kids were still reeling when he told them he had another trip early this week.

As soon as the news is broken that their beloved (because, really Moms, are we not just chopped liver sometimes?) will be gone for any amount of time, the moping begins. The moping leads to whining, the whining leads to walking on eggshells and eventually the eggshells just crack and we are in full blown tantrum mode. “I MISS DADDY!” “I WANT DADDY!”

This week they hit an all time low. As they were desperately trying to find ways to soothe themselves, my daughter starts crying about the training potty that she saw in the garage. The training potty she never actually used. The training potty that is about to be sold at consignment. The training potty that is shaped like a froggy. “I WANT MY FROGGY POTTY! I MISS DADDY! I WANT MY POTTY!” I mean, the child was desperate. Here, give me that random thing that I haven’t seen in about a year and then all my pain about missing my daddy will go away.

Later on in the week, my son was at a sports program and as I watched him at practice, he was bounding around like a kangaroo, distracted and just not paying attention at all. After class, I asked him why he was so distracted today and he said “I didn’t pay attention because Daddy wasn’t there. I miss Daddy.”

Isn’t that how we are though? Aren’t we always looking for ways to ease or diminish our pain? Wouldn’t it just be easier to buy something, take something, eat something, smash something, hurt someone, ignore someone or slack off just so we can just FEEL BETTER? Our culture has a bad habit of just pushing stuff underground and thinking that they will just deal with it later. I’m not saying that wallowing in our emotions is productive or beneficial all the time, but left invalidated or ignored, they will come back roaring with a vengeance to be heard. Regardless of what we try to do to hide or mask them sadness, loneliness, depression, anxiety, fear, anger, longing or any other unpleasant feeling will come out of hiding eventually. Sometimes, it is a daily surrender…

In a moment of clarity during my daughters crying, I said to her “I miss Daddy too. But that froggy potty is not going to make you miss him any less. Sometimes, we just have to miss Daddy and deal with the sadness that comes along with it.” She didn’t stop crying right away, but by validating her feelings and then letting her know that I missed Daddy too, we were able to move on – and I didn’t have to bring that froggy potty into the house. I said something similar to my son about him being distracted in his class “Son, even if Daddy is not at our class, we still have to focus and do our best. We cannot do a poor job just because Daddy is not here. It is not always going to work out that we can all come to every class.”

My kids (and me too) will likely feel the pain of missing Daddy again and dealing with the unpleasantness of being sad is a skill they are going to need to thrive.

*I am truly amazed by military spouses, first responder spouses, single mom’s, young widows or any other parent that has to take on the responsibility of their whole family without their partner on a consistent and frequent basis. My kids do not know how good they have it and I am always trying to teach them that while they miss their Daddy for a few days, that we are incredibly blessed to have him around as much as we do.

“Put that coffee down. Coffee is for closers only.”

Not in my house.

Coffee is for whoever needs it. Except the children. Coffee is not for the children.

My husband and I have this running joke about the movie Glengarry Glen Ross. First of all, he has actually seen it. I could barely stay focused watching a five-minute clip of Alec Baldwin swearing and talking about his $80,000 BMW. Honestly, I’d take the Hyundai. I’d be Blake’s worst nightmare. I’d be fired. But the funny thing (and what our joke revolves around) is that without all the swearing, that movie could be a page out of a Mother’s playbook. Let me explain.

ABC – Always Be Closing. In sales? Yes. Of course. It’s how you make money. It’s how you keep your job. But for the mom, we wake up closing. Attempting to get a young child dressed, fed and on track to get them anywhere on time or at all requires the art of the ABC’s. You must predict every move they will make, every detour they will take and every opportunity they have to go completely sideways on you. You have to be selling every second of the day.

“Oh, you don’t want to go to school today? Well, how in the world are we going to get that super cool show and share about the polar region to your class? You don’t want oatmeal for breakfast? But I have all these cool frozen berries you can put in it and watch them melt…and then your oatmeal will turn purple! Oh, you can’t find your shoes? Let’s sing that Bear Hunt song, but let’s sing it about your shoes.”

Always be closing.

Sell your NO – If there is one piece of sales advice that I tell my husband every day it is that he has to sell his “no.” Nobody wants to hear the word “no.” Especially children. You can’t just say “no” to a kid and expect them to smile at you, tilt their head in agreement and say “you’re right mom. I don’t really need anything else. I have enough. I don’t need to go to the park right this second, I can wait until you are finished with dinner and then wait until you have also fed yourself and had a nice chat with Father.” That just doesn’t happen. You have to sell that “no.” It usually looks something like this:

“Wow! The park sound like a great idea. We have so much fun there. What should we do when we get to the park? I like the swings. Let’s go on the swings after dinner.”

Sure it takes almost a hundred extra words, but you’re just not going to get good results unless you sell that “no.” I ask my husband if he likes to hear the word “no” from his customers and he looks at me and with a straight face, he says “no.”

Help me, help you! –  Most of the time, kids are not looking for solutions. They do not want you to fix everything. Toys, yes. Torn pages in books, of course. But when they are acting out and putting you through the ringer, it’s best to step back and see what it is they actually need.

One evening while I was finishing up dinner, I heard my exasperated husband ask our five year-old “tell me a little bit about what you are looking for.”  I started laughing because I have heard him say this to his customers. My husband knows that the relationship is the most important thing in closing business. The customer has to trust you and has to trust that what you are selling him is the best solution for his problem.

Your kids are your toughest customer and they have every objection in the book. When you back up a bit and ask what they need, you are engaging your child. You are having relationship with your child. Most of the time, they just want us to be still with them and enter whatever play world they have imagined up. Ask a couple of questions, have them tell you the rules of the game, dress up, whatever – but give them a chance to tell you what they need and for the love, LISTEN.

The Weird Clapping Thing – When all else fails, just go bananas. Sometimes, you have to resort to complete and utter nonsense to distract them. Weird clapping and dancing work, but so does laughter and humor. Some customers have just had a tough day. They don’t want another sales pitch and they don’t want another box of stale donuts (although I’ve never seen one turn that down). Lighten up the room with a smile and a laugh and then maybe if those don’t work, start handing out stale donuts.

Now where did I put that coffee…

I don’t always grieve, but when I do I am more sarcastic than usual.

This week, seemed to be a week that many people I know lost someone close to them or have been grieving something or someone. I have been following posts and status updates about treatments and symptoms and courses of treatment and whatnot and sending up prayers for people I’ve never met and hoping and praying for miracles and complete healing. Their stories, Facebook pages and video logs have brought me to tears. Seeing the outpouring of love they are surrounded by with friends and family members has been so touching. Knowing of those families who support and encourage them willing to travel thousands of miles to support their friends and stay up with them in the middle of the night just to be there or just to cry with them if need be makes me want to be a better person. Watching two adult men escort my pastor onto the stage for him to deliver our greeting because at just about the three year mark of his diagnosis with Multiple System Atrophy, his legs are beginning to fail (you can go to www.gregrohlinger.com to read the story of facing his greatest fear) made my eyes well up with tears and my breathing shallow.

Then mid week, I noticed something wrong with our kids pet fish “Golden Blackie.” He is named that because he is a goldfish with a black spot on his head. Don’t you just love the way kids see things? Anyway, GB (as I call him for short, sometimes even just “Geebs”) was kind of just floating around and his scales seemed to be kind of peeling. He looked pale and wasn’t swimming all over like he usually does. Immediately, I took action and cleaned out his little fish bowl thinking that maybe it was just a dirty bowl – even though we had just cleaned it. Then, just like you see in the movies, I got right up in his fishy face and said “you hang in there Golden, don’t you leave us. We still need you!! Don’t you quit on us now!” Don’t laugh. I was totally serious. I could not let that fish die.

You see, most of the time we are so out of touch with our grief. We are out of touch with the fact that the reason we are a little touchy, more sarcastic, quick to anger, mopey, edgy, or any other manner of emotions is because we are grieving something. When I spoke those words to our pet fish, whom I have only known for eight months, I was touching on my fear of loss. I am afraid to lose my kids pet fish because I am afraid to see them grieve. Seeing others grieve reminds me that I too have much to lose. I am afraid of losing those who are close to me and those who I love with the kind of love that can make your heart burst. I am afraid of my kids ever having to lose me, or their daddy, their grandparents, cousins or…their pet fish. I am afraid to hurt and I am afraid to lose.

I think we all are at some level. Grieving and mourning are tough.

Our fish is fine. But this week, two different young mothers lost the loves of their lives and their kids lost their daddy. Another young wife, mother and sorority sister of mine began chemo and began sharing her thoughts on her Facebook page, “Running Through Chemo.” A sweet toddler with the most infectious smile and sweetest eyes took a stay in the hospital to treat a fever that comes after several rounds of chemo and after a surgery to remove his neuroblastoma, you can pray for Zane on their Facebook page, “Pray For Zane” and Mary, the woman who always had a smile for you as she handed you your church bulletin before service left her mark on this world too.

It is hard to grieve and mourn those who are still around you and still with you. We don’t naturally have that sense of urgency. But we can cherish our moments. Even the hard ones.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Matthew 5:4