Month: May 2019

I often find myself feeling misunderstood. Well, probably not as much now as I did when I was a kid but there have been plenty of times where I wasn’t sure if someone “got me.” Sometimes I speak in a way where people who don’t know me, could think I was a really horrible person.

For me, being misunderstood leads to so many questions. What if it they don’t understand what I’m saying?  What if they tell someone else?  What if I write something that doesn’t convey what I think it does?   What if they judge me for my words?  What if they find out I have no idea what I am doing and most days I feel like a total fraud? What if I fail?

The what if questions are suffocating.  They hold your head down while you are under water trying desperately to catch a breath. If I focus too much on the what if questions I find myself sitting in the corner of my kitchen crying, trying to breathe.  These what if questions are the stuff nightmares are made of.  I think the what if’s give birth to fear.  And fear sidelines you so fast you can’t even think about it.  Even sitting here typing this, typing the questions and thinking about the fears my breathing is labored.  The what if’s breed fear because they are all based on unknowns and fear likes the unknowns.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live sidelined anymore.  I don’t want to be living in fear, waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I want to dream the big dreams and do it because, why not?!?  I don’t want to be the person that puts on my Sunday best and then hangs it up when I get home.  I want Jesus walking with me in my yoga pants.  (And I don’t even do yoga!)  I just want to be myself, unashamed and unafraid.  Fear has nothing on you if you don’t let it.  I don’t want to worry about coming across to churchy.  I don’t want to be churchy.  I want to be love.  Jesus was love.  He loved people better than anyone in the history of the earth.  Not many of us would forgive the people who beat us and hung us to die but that’s the love Jesus showed.

So who’s with me?  Can you imagine what the world would be like if we stopped worrying about offending someone and just loved them?  What would it be like if we stopped arguing about every little difference and just loved each other?  What if we didn’t worry about being misunderstood and just loved people and let people love us? I am going to go out on a limb here and say it would be flipping amazing!!  Let’s get in the game already and stop asking the questions and just do it!  Let’s go before the clock runs out!

We’ve all heard it.

You’re at your kid’s game and there are parents muttering under their breath (and sometimes louder) about the ref’s call or the coach’s decision.  We’ve all heard it and maybe we are the guilty party.  I know I’ve made comments about bad calls or decisions.

At one of my kid’s games this season one of the parents was upset with the official’s calls during the game and confronted the official after the game.  Now, I understand where this parent was coming from but the thing that made me sad is that the team saw.

When my kid got in the car, the comment was made that they lost because of the unfair calls.  I was quick to correct this.  They lost because they didn’t play well.  A couple missed calls wasn’t going to change the outcome of the game.

I hear it at school. A parent of a child who stole some of my kid’s things earlier in the year said it wasn’t her child’s fault. It was my kid’s fault because she left her things in the class.  And although I don’t think it was entirely my kid’s fault, we did have the conversation about being more responsible.

A friend posted on social media this morning that his kid didn’t make the travel team. He went on to add that there was no shortage of parents complaining about the process and policies. Another case of parents looking for someone to blame.  My friend is teaching his kid that he can bounce back from this and that hockey doesn’t define him.  This right here, is parenting.

SO many of us get caught up in the “my kid has to be the best” game that we forget they are tiny humans who mess up and do things wrong.  We are always looking for the reason why.  Why did they fail the test?  Why didn’t they make the team?  Our kids are hearing us say that teacher didn’t send home a study guide or Johnny’s dad is friends with the coach so he made the team because of that, and I’m going to go our on a limb here, but I don’t think that is what our kids need from us.

Where we go wrong as parents is with these comments.  We blame someone else because we can’t bear to think that our kid did something wrong or isn’t good enough.  We don’t just do it with them, we do it with our own lives too.  We don’t want to feel less than and we don’t want to admit that maybe we were wrong about something so we lay blame.  “That’s not what I thought this relationship would look like.” “My boss just doesn’t have realistic deadlines and doesn’t realize how busy I am.”

I think one of the greatest gifts we can give our kids is to teach them to take responsibility for their actions.  This is rare.  It is like Bigfoot, rare.  We need to stop blaming the teacher, the coach, the principal, the friend, the ref, the other kid at school.  We need to take a solid look at our roll in the situation and get honest.  You’re not perfect.  Your kid is not perfect.  Wouldn’t you rather they learn the hard lessons now?  I’d much rather my kid not make the team or fail the test now and learn how to work hard to accomplish a goal, than have everything handed to them and flounder in a new job when they are fresh out of college.

Our kids need to know what to do when they fail.  They are going to fail.  We all do. Will we accept it?  Will we examine and take responsibility for our part? Will we teach our kids to take responsibility or will we continue to turn a blind eye to everything they do? I don’t know about you but I’m teaching my kids responsibility.  And I’m calling them out when they’re shits.  Sorry for the language but I am not naïve enough to think my kids are perfect outside my walls.  They are tiny humans who make mistakes.  Their mistakes don’t define them but how they handle those mistakes says a lot about their character. I would rather my kids be the ones with great character than the ones that passed every test and made every team.

I’m in the middle of Jennie Allen’s book, Made for This. It is a study, designed to walk you through different questions and activities to discover the purpose God has for you. (I’m not doing it justice with that description by the way…you should just read it and see for yourself!)

If you know me, you know I’m a pretty big fan of hers because she is real. There is an authenticity that comes through her words on the page and if you hear her speak, her heart aches for you to understand the message. I share her ache. The ache you have for someone to just get it! And not because you’re telling them, because you’ve experienced it.

She is big on discipling. After all, that is what we are supposed to do, right? She puts an emphasis on other women discipling younger women as well, because we have something to share. I learned this first hand.

I spent last weekend in South Carolina with an amazing group of women, leading at The Well. (Something we refer to as “not your average women’s retreat.”) I am so incredibly fortunate to lead with an amazing group of women. These friends come for you and say the tough stuff when it is needed. And even though it is the tough stuff, it is it bathed in love. And it isn’t all serious- we laugh more than most! It is a privilege to stand beside women who are a season or two ahead of me, and a season or two behind me.

After this weekend away, I am even more convinced that we need to stop worrying about having it all figured out before we share our story. First, we won’t ever achieve it- that’s perfection and it is unattainable. Second, they need to hear what we’ve been through, struggled with, succeeded in. Let someone else learn from your story.

There are three girls, ages 18-20, who I love so, so dearly! They are the real deal! They are wise beyond their years and walk so closely with the Lord. You can see His love ooze from them. I am pretty sure I see His smile in theirs.

It would be really easy for me to keep all the stupid mistakes and gross parts of my story under wraps because I don’t want them (or anyone) to think bad of me. I don’t want anyone to question my love and devotion to Jesus. But, those three amazing girls sat there and told all of us (old ladies) how thankful they were for our authenticity. They need to see other Christian women speaking the hard stuff. And we get real. There is no hiding on this team of women. We talked about dating and marriage and kids and how we struggled.

So back to Made for This– Jennie uses 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 which says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort of we ourselves receive from God.”

You guys! This verse tells us we need to share our stories. We need to offer the comfort we have received because someone else needs it as well. Think of it this way, walking through stuff gives you street cred. Urban Dictionary defines street credibility as “commanding a level of respect in an urban environment due to experience in or knowledge of issues affecting those environments.” Your stuff is a gift.  It doesn’t feel like a gift and you may not see it as one, but someone else will benefit from it if you let them. If you share it, they will share it, and you can comfort!

Jesus had street cred. He was fully God but he was also fully man. He felt pain and probably skinned his knee a time or two. He fasted for 40 days and 40 nights so of course he felt hunger. He was betrayed and denied by his closest friends.  He knows what we are walking through on this earth. And by allowing troubles to come to us, He is giving us two gifts.  The first is the gift of coming to Him with our junk.  He knows all the things, He has experienced it all and He tells us to bring our burdens to Him. He wants to carry then for us and He is walking next to us. He holds you by His mighty right hand.  The second is allowing our junk for someone else’s benefit.  We may get to the other side or we may not, but we can be honest and walk alongside someone else.  We have the street cred now and it can a gift to someone else.  He is giving us time with Him and giving us the ability to show someone else how faithful He is because of what we’ve walked through.

What are you going to do? The beauty of God is that He gives us choices. Are you going to own your street cred?  Are you going to see it as a blessing or another thing that has gone wrong? Remember, God works ALL things together for good.

Share your stuff. Someone needs to hear it! God gave you the street cred to use for His glory.