The Hazards of Relatives Visiting

So we’ve had two really long, stressful weeks so far.  I’m really hoping for quiet week this week.  Both sets of parents visited over the course of the last two weekends.  In addition to that, my little boy was sick in between the two visits.  I don’t think grandparents quite understand the stress of them visiting (and staying with us).  I mean, they spend however many days here and it really, really bothers me that they can be just as hard to deal with as my two year old.  Doesn’t matter that it’s getting late and the kiddie has to go to sleep, they’ll keep spinning him up through the whole thing.  I hate it that I have to be the bad guy… I have to make sure my son eats, gets a clean diaper, takes a nap when he’s tired and goes to bed at night – all of which interrupts him playing with his very entertaining companions.  And then guess what – they leave and I have to spend the next couple days explaining why they had to go home and dealing with the backlash of my little boy not having constant stimulation and entertainment.  All of which translates to me having to deal with my normally calm boy screaming and crying a lot.

Moms get forgotten an awful lot in these sorts of things.  During the in between time, I had a screaming boy because he was sick and it’s a pretty thankless job especially since when he felt better the next day grandparents got here and they’re so much more entertaining than I am.

In addition to all of that, grandpa #1 came up to visit telling us he really wasn’t feeling good.  Hmm…coincidence that we got sick just after he left?  Maybe, but still pretty annoying.  He also has to try to “fix” anything he can think of…  computer doesn’t seem to be working right, he’ll try to fix it, gate doesn’t close right, he’ll take care of it.  You might think it’s nice, but it just is there trying to make us feel incompetent.  He may not mean it that way, but that’s what it is.

Then there’s my parents…what do I say about them?  They can be nice when they feel like it.  They usually feel like it when they’re visiting, but there are always comments to deal with.  My mom was emotionally abusive to me as a child and is still a manipulator now.  If I’m not always on my guard, she starts up with whatever she can get away with again and is very hurtful.  But then she’s on her best behavior sometimes when she visits and she’ll make comments about how she “wasn’t really that bad” as a mother or how she “made some mistakes” but everyone does that.  And it makes me feel guilty…like I should be more likely to “forgive and forget” whatever mistakes she made.  The problem is that I can’t let myself forget.  As soon as I do, she insulates herself into my life as far as she possibly can and will do whatever she needs to do to get her emotional fix off of me.  So her visits always keep me filled with an internal stress of trying to keep myself from falling into her trap again and/or letting her do manipulative things to my child.

So often I just want to tell the grandparents NO, they can’t visit.  And I just don’t have a good answer.  I don’t want to keep my child from having a relationship with them, but it’s really stressful for me.  No matter how many times I try to explain it to them it doesn’t work and it’s just too much most of the time and they’re always asking for more… more of whatever… more visits… more playing… more, more more and I’m still the bad guy.

What a week!

It’s been a week to remember the good things happening in life.  It’s just been one of those weeks.  Home by myself most of the week with a toddler, high blood sugar when I saw the midwife this week (had to glucose test myself one day – 9ish finger sticks), a testing toddler and now DH is back and we have family staying with us.  My little boy loves when grandpa comes to visit, but it means I have to be the mean, nasty mommy who makes him take a nap and go to sleep at night…not fun.

But we’ve had good points this week too.  My little boy started saying a bunch of new words, we did lots of craft stuff together, he went down some slides at the park by himself, he figured out how to roll his tongue and most exciting: he pretended to play grocery store at the play place this week without any prompting from me (scanning things, taking stuff out of the shopping cart, getting money, etc.).  On top of that, he’s very cute.

Sitting in a box

A Happy Boy with a Donut

What is Love?

I think my biggest question in life is: What is Love? Sure, lots of people have pat answers: Love is a verb. Love is God. Love is putting someone else first. Love is patient, kind, etc. But what is it really? How do you define it? How do you practice it? How do you know it’s there? How do you know what you’re doing/feeling/living is appropriate Love and not some bad distortion?

Let me give some examples:

Your friend has trouble paying his bills. You want to help. But you watch any extra money that comes for your friend go toward his video game system. Is it really loving to help him pay his bills when it probably means that he’ll now use some of his “extra” money to buy more instead of pay bills?

Your family is mean, hurtful and treats you like you’re worthless. But they say “I love you” and insist on hugs and kisses to say goodbye. Is this really love?

The people at church call you brother or sister, but they’ve never had a conversation with you outside of “hey, how are you doing?” They all believe they have “brotherly love” for each other, but what is it really?

The older lady at church comes over to say how much she loves you, but then precedes to tell you everything wrong with you. Is this really love?

The homeless person interviewed for the paper says what a rough time he’s having living near the river, but he admits that there are lots of places willing to help…he’d just have to give up drinking. He doesn’t want to do that, so here’s where he is. If you try to do something for him, are you just enabling him?

I always feel very guilty when I stand up for myself – thinking how can this be loving when I’ve hurt the other person, even if by intention or accident they were hurting me. Especially when the person says how much they love me. Are they loving me by hurting me? Am I loving them even when I stand up for myself?

The truth is, I really don’t know what love is. Maybe sometimes it can be lots of different things. Maybe we should have 20-30 different words instead of just “love”. And maybe so many of us are broken people that we can’t really see what love is anyway. Maybe we’re all just plodding along doing our best and we have to make the best decision we can at the moment. Maybe at some point we need to stop and look at things as single simple acts of love…I said thank you to this person today, I wrote this person a note, I took care of someone today. Maybe at all of these in between times we simply have to stop and think and make sure we’re not being mean. Maybe that’s one of the biggest parts of loving.

Quiverful, trusting God and the nature of blessing

Being pregnant, I’ve felt rather inundated with thoughts about the people who are Quiverful. At the moment, I can’t imagine trying to handle more than one child (although I’m pregnant with our second). And it’s hard for me to fathom that people truly have time to care for bunches and bunches of children.

Growing up I was around lots of people who followed Bill Gothard and similar teachings and I knew quite a few families that had a few kids, got fixed, joined ATI and then started working on the process to get unfixed. Even now there is at least one family associated with my husband’s job that is definitely Quiverful. How do I know? The back of their van has the verse plastered across it and their license plate says QUIVER, plus the five kids give you a pretty good springboard for a guess. I have nothing against people that have lots of kids and I think it’s great for the people that can manage all of that. For myself I don’t see being able to handle more than two kids and I’ll be glad to get out of the baby stage (and I admit that I’ll be glad to not be pregnant anymore). I find some problems with the movement as a whole though…

First, the whole issue of “we’re trusting God for our family size”. I realize a lot of people might not agree with me, but right now I just don’t believe God is really intervening in lives on a regular basis like that. On the one hand, it just seems to belittle the people who’s prayers go unanswered (no, I don’t believe the “God must have said no” argument adequately answers this) and/or does not take into account the evil in the world (illness, violence, pain, abuse, unhealthy living, pollution, etc.). Sure I believe God is at work in the world. I just don’t think God steps in at every turn to somewhat control our lives. So many people are suffering in the world from so much more than just whether or not they have another child and I just can’t believe that God would not do something in those situations (where those people might be trusting God for “help” too) and yet somehow specifically intervene in whether or not someone gets pregnant. On the other hand, it removes a huge human factor – did you know there’s realistically only a few days a cycle where a woman can get pregnant? If you have sex on those days without some form of protection, there’s a chance you could get pregnant, if you don’t…well, it’s definitely going to be a miracle otherwise. Reapplying a phrase from one of my college professors, if you don’t do anything to prevent it then you’re trying to make it happen. I myself believe that God is more likely to grant wisdom and insight and it’s up to us to make decisions that work best in our situation.

Secondly, this whole idea of “happy is the man who’s quiver is full” of children. I think most Quiverful people look at it in a happy = blessed sense – God blessed you with lots of children, etc. It just seems to me that some people have lots of children “to get God’s blessing” and think that’s a good end to the story. It reminds me of the story of Israel – they just didn’t get that the whole reason for getting a blessing was so the rest of the world would be blessed. I just see so many of the people with lots of children treating them in a mean way and/or just not have the time, ability or even desire to truly look after their children’s needs. It makes me really sad. I don’t think everyone is like this, but a lot of people are. It seems the whole way God works is blessing someone so they can pass it on. What’s more important than blessing the children God has given you? I think about it lately and I just want to ask people: Have you blessed your children today? Or have you decided that now you can rest easy knowing you’ve been blessed and as long as your children are “honoring God” everything is great no matter how you treat them in the process?

For myself, I want to bless my children as much as I possibly can (as well as my husband) and I just don’t see myself being able to do that with more than two children right now. I trust God by determining how much I think I can handle, taking steps to not go beyond that (and knowing the body that God gave me) and then knowing that nothing is “fail-safe” and God can still get around my plans if He really wants to.

Mean Christian Parents

I was reading the blog post on White Washed Feminists the other day about the Pearls and what they have to say about “Patriarchal Dysfunctional Families”. Wow. I didn’t know there was a movement to talk about these sorts of things. Now, in my family it was expected that I would go to college and have a decent job (which I did). The rest of the article though, describes a lot of what my family was like. A lot of my friends growing up (now as adults) have lived this sort of life too (although I don’t know about the inner workings of their families). And I just have to wonder, what makes a family/parents do something like this? Why would they try to keep their kids constantly under their control instead of letting them grow up? Even “kids” in their 20s and 30s, sitting at home, waiting for mom and dad to allow them to do something. The Pearls seem to give it an air of emotional neediness in the parents and maybe it’s that too, but some part of me would like to think that these people have good intentions for their kids.

I think about it that for myself and many of my friends, our parents became Christians in the 18-25 year old range. When they had interests, hobbies, possibly even the start of careers and life was taking them in a certain direction. Then they became Christians. They were told all of these outside, “secular” things they were doing were wrong (think: baptists and dancing, etc.). And not only were they wrong, but now as a Christian you are so instantly changed from the indwelling of the Spirit that you no longer even want to do these things – you don’t want to spend time with your old friends, you don’t want to do any of these “secular” things anymore.

Then take it one step further… These somewhat confused people (trying to deny that they actually like what used to be a part of their life) now put their whole life into “being a Christian”, being a part of a church and staying away from these bad influences – now they have kids. Well, now the church tells them: you can keep your kids from getting into this bad stuff you used to be into by training them properly. As long as you do it right, they won’t stray from that. But remember, any bad peer pressure could make them turn (bad peer pressure is so much stronger than good peer pressure you know). So you homeschool and/or just isolate them further from the “secular” people or even the Christian people that don’t meet up to your standards.

Of course, all of this has a two-fold purpose that is only mentioned in passing I think. 1) By doing all of this, you’re keeping your kids out of hell. If you don’t do these things, you’d actually have to trust that your kids will see all the different influences (good and bad) and still make a good Christian decision every time. So much easier if you’re always telling them right and wrong, it leaves no chance for them to mess up and “accidentally” go to hell. Then 2) any mistakes children make – even adult children – look badly on you. Think about the verses that people use to say whether you can be a deacon or an elder. If your kids aren’t “under control”, you’re not qualified.

All of these things put a huge burden onto the parents. I don’t think it’s right what the parents are doing. I think it’s along the lines of people who beat or ignore their children because that’s what they Pearls or the Ezzos say to do. But I think a lot of people who are very involved in evangelical churches have gotten this sort of teaching and they’re “trying to do what God wants them to do” that they stop seeing people. They see the formula and they see the judgements, but the relationships don’t matter. Whether it’s the person treating their child this way, or the person calling for a pastor’s resignation because their adult child didn’t behave in an appropriate way, people need to wake up and see that no matter what the Bible says (i.e. the way you interpret something), harming people and being mean is never ok. I think it’s time most people get a good message from the pulpit of “treat others the way you want to be treated” including your kids and, oh yeah, “keeping them out of hell” does not count when you’re mean about everything else.

Reimagining Church Review

I finally finished reading Frank Viola’s new book, Reimagining Church. After reading Pagan Christianity, I was very anxious to read this one. It’s been on my Amazon.com pre-order list for quite a while and I think I received it in the mail the same day it was scheduled to be released.

I was very impressed with the book. So many of the things Frank talks about are things that I’ve thought about for a while and it’s nice to know other people are thinking these things as well. Since at least my late teens, it’s always seemed to me that the Scriptures were saying each Christian should have a part in being able to build up other Christians and have important things to add to sharpen each other through our study of the Bible and through what’s going on in our lives. I truly never saw that in a church setting and was roadblocked every time I even mentioned it somewhere. The idea that pastors or their representatives are the only ones authorized to lead/start Bible studies and/or take the lead in discussing a subject always seemed to stifle the rest of the people in church, although most of the time it seemed I was the only one that cared.

I’ve found it very difficult to find people that think about these things or that are willing to talk about them. Most people that I’ve met seem very comfortable in their pew. It’s not to say that there aren’t people involved in what they believe to be church – even for myself, almost the whole time I was involved in the institutional church I was involved in multiple “ministries”. Of course, somehow for me the institutional church and all these “ministries” never felt like community and I never truly seemed to fit in anywhere. It’s been a little over two years since I left the institutional church and so far, there has still been some guilt in that but I just don’t see another option right now. I can’t continue to support and/or try to fit in to an institution that I believe is so faulty.

I did have a few concerns with Frank’s view of organic churches. To start with, I don’t know how all of this would work with young children. Thinking about nap times and bed times and even just trying to keep the kids occupied, I just don’t seem something working that’s more than say one hour of talking time and perhaps a meal after that – not to mention the idea of meeting more than once a week or so. Perhaps it’s my own biases but unless everyone lives with say 15 minutes of each other, I can’t see trying to meet every day or even nearly every day. Some of that smacks of emotional neediness to me (possibly more of my own emotional dysfunctions talking that reality). And I don’t know where that would leave time for the rest of life. Americans as a whole are so busy anyway that it would just seem really important to slow down for time with your family, time for church life and time for the rest of live too. There are lots of committed Christians in the institutional church who keep themselves so busy with “church things” that they truly have no time for their families or even “down time” to recharge themselves – but hey, that’s what it means to be part of God’s family, right? I was part of that group for a while and 1) it still doesn’t mean you’re part of “community” and 2) sometimes it just keeps you from stopping to think what you’re really doing. I also don’t know how this sort of togetherness leaves time to be a part of your neighborhood community. It seems a lot like just another way to isolate yourselves from having be around “all those non-Christians”. I don’t really think that is Frank’s intention behind what he’s saying. He only mentioned in passing one example of a house church that met almost every day, but it just stuck with me – like I said, possibly more from my own dysfunctional community experiences.

My second concern is: I just have to wonder about how long an organic church ordinarily lasts. I can’t remember if it was from an interview with Frank that I read or if I read it somewhere else, but someone mentioned the average lifespan for a house church is only a few years (maybe they said 3-5?). If the people in the house church are truly “being the body of Christ”, why do they end? Why a mention in the book about knowing when Christ is no longer a part of your house church? One would think that whether you feel something or not, this is where you’re supposed to be. Is the reason for a church breaking apart partly that everyone gets together and it’s a bit of an emotional high but then eventually it starts to wear off? Too many commitments for people? Too much time required to keep up the house church too? I just don’t see any place in the Bible where they mention a church dissolving. Everyone was it in for the long haul.

In the same vein, why do house churches split and/or people leave a house church? If you’re all trying for the same thing, why doesn’t it work for some people? Again, not committed enough? Too many other commitments? Are the people that leave possibly the same people that felt neglected or not a part of the institutional church and they find the same mentality in the house church – as long as you have this type of personality a house church will work for you, but otherwise you’ll always feel on the outskirts?

I don’t know the answers to these ones. I really wish there were other local people I could find who want to think about these things. Frank makes it pretty clear in the book that this is not the only way you can be a Christian and yet he does feel that to be a complete Christian all of these things are important. And yet, what about the people who pray and look and read and try and just don’t seem to find that? Are they not as complete of Christians? Why would God not bring you into this situation if this is truly the way to be a more complete Christian? Right now, sometimes I do think that even finding one other person and having a weekly “Starbucks time” would be a good start to this Christian community living and still quite a bit more edifying than sitting through an institutional church service.

Gentle Parenting and the other children

I try really hard not to be judgmental of other people, especially other people’s parenting styles. There’s one thing though that I have a really hard time with (besides the obvious things like abuse): I have a really hard time with people allow their children to hit, take toys from other kids or generally do mean things to other kids. Now, before you say “every child does that sometimes” – I know. That’s not my point and that’s not what bothers me. The thing is, I can understand it happening the first time (even so far as the first time in a given day, playdate, etc). But when you as the parent sit doing something and your child hits or something like that, telling them from across the room “don’t do that” just doesn’t work for a toddler. It’s also not very helpful to turn to whoever else is nearby and say “it was just an accident”. Your child picked up a rock, glared at my child and threw it at my child – luckily your child doesn’t have a very good aim and it missed – it wasn’t an accident.

I’ve always seen the gentle parenting/Attachment Parenting model as partly giving your child the freedom and opportunity to explore and act like children. But at the same time, I’ve always had the philosophy that “your freedom ends where my nose begins”. It seems lots of parents in my area don’t see it that way.

Now, I’m not saying you need to spank or be rough or mean or angry in reaction to your child hitting or something. But sometimes it does take sitting next to them and paying enough attention that you stop their hand from connecting with another child or giving a toy right back to another child. I’ve seen parents sit negotiating with their child to give a toy back and I think it’s great to respect your child’s person and their feelings, but what does that say to the child who just had a toy taken? Why does the passive child have to be the one to suffer because an aggressive child is hitting or taking toys or something? A passive toddler should not need to defend himself. There’s plenty of time for standing up to people when you’re older. Especially when you’re not talking yet, you should be able to expect the adults around you to show that you’re important too.

Let your child be a child, but also remember that all the other children can be children too. Your child is important, but they give up the freedom to do whatever they want when it interferes with another child’s freedom.

When we all get to Heaven…

Growing up around heavily pre-tribulation rapture people, I think it’s rather hard to not think about Heaven and the Rapture often. I remember lots of prayers (perhaps not voiced to my parents) that went something like “…and please don’t return until after we’ve been to Disneyland”. It probably ends up sounding silly to lots of people, but when most of the adults that you’re around sit saying “it could be any day”, there’s a definite preoccupation in addition to the unknown of Heaven versus the known fun time you’ll have someplace like Disneyland.

As I got older, I didn’t really see how a person could make a persuasive argument one way or the other – it seemed like you could pull out a few verses from the Bible to assure yourself of anything related to “Jesus’ return”, Heaven, the Rapture, etc. Of course, now I don’t think I really believe in any of it…not the way it was always presented at least. So far the only person I’ve found that I think has a compelling argument and takes into account all of the Bible is N.T. Wright. His view that the afterlife is not a “going to Heaven” but a restoration of Earth and everything in it seems so much more plausible to who it seems God is and why we would be living on earth. I no longer believe that our bodies are simply a vapor that will disappear along with this life. I believe we’ll finally be restored – different, but still bodies, still people and somehow all of this life matters for something more than just a “practice run” or a trial period for who gets in to Heaven.

Of course, I really don’t know what any of this will look like played out, but sometimes I like to imagine it. (Another one of those things that evangelicals would say is very wrong…imagination is bad, you should only look at what the Bible says. Yeah.) Sometimes I think that perhaps this restoration is not so much a “new you”, but a filling in by God of the old you. Not so much that God takes away your tears, but just that He now dries them if/when they fall.

I think just about every Christian has heard all of the “God-shaped hole” theory and how Christianity takes care of that hole. Sadly, I’ve found that not to be true. All of my prayers, all of my “quiet times”, all of my desires for God to do something about my holes hasn’t seemed to do a bit of good. Still there, still flapping in the breeze. Whether it’s the “God-shaped hole” or the “sickness-shaped hole” or the “abused-shaped hole” or even the “friend-shaped hole”, nothing has seemed to make them any less noticeable or any less painful. I’d like to imagine that these things are taken care of in this restoration process of the afterlife. Perhaps they’re not taken away, perhaps they’re not “sewn shut” – perhaps what really happens is that God fills them in with Himself. You may still know they’re there, but they’re no longer the same painful flapping. It’s also not a filling in with yourself. It’s a filling in with God. You will potentially always feel a certain “otherness” to the fill – not a pain, but just not yourself. Perhaps that is part of the criteria for this restoration (in evangelical terms, whether you go to Heaven or Hell), are you willing to 1) admit to your holes, 2) allow God to fill them (admitting that they need to be filling), and 3) and acknowledging it’s not you doing it and you can have no arrogance about “being perfect” now. Maybe new holes will still be made, maybe you’ll still think about and remember the pain of the old ones, but God is always there to fill in and comfort whatever happens.

It seems there’s too much pain and suffering in the world today for Christians to hold onto their bandwagon that “if you were just a Christian” it would all be fine. Life right now is not fine. Sometimes we find contentment, sometimes we find joy or happiness, but parts of us will still be empty – we’re still ache uncontrollably sometimes. And I find it rather arrogant and disturbing when Christians see your pain and say that “if you just did this” it would all be fine. Even the lines of “God will help you get through it” and “you can find joy in it” are a bit disturbing when there’s always that underlying issue that “God will do whatever you want if you have even the faith of a mustard seed”.

Anyway, I hope and imagine that these things are taken care of in the afterlife and that I’m finally restored. But I have to think that it’s not simply a “perfect new me” that God creates – somehow I wouldn’t be who I am if my holes weren’t there, but potentially God can fill them and show me how to be more fully His creation once this restoration is complete. And maybe some of this is happening now, but unlike most Christians I’ve seen, I don’t think this will be anywhere near complete until the afterlife. I don’t think any of the holes are truly filled until that point.

And although I still have things I want to do before I die, I can now say “Come Lord Jesus, Come” and know that we won’t really be sitting on clouds playing harps all day (boring considering all the things we do now). Things may not be so radically different (the whole idea of Heaven versus Earth), but they really will be better and MORE than we could ever imagine.

Welcome to my blog!

Welcome to my blog.  I’m Cristi, I live in Nevada.  I’m married with a 2+ year old and another on the way.  This blog will probably often be spiritual in nature, but I can’t promise anything.  I decided to start a blog to chronicle some of my spiritual journey as well as my thoughts on anything else that looks promising.  Hopefully I’ll have time to write up a post on where my spiritual journey has taken me so far, but until then I hope you enjoy the other things I think about.

Dying to Self = Loving Others?

I’ve been reading Molly’s blog for a little more than a month now. I haven’t commented on anything yet, but it’s given me lots to think about. It sounds like we came from similar places although at different times in life and with different results. I read her post on Hating Love today and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

Yes, I think I do hate loving people. Though if you asked me 10 years ago, I think I would have had a very different answer for you. We’ve each been on a journey that has put us where we are right now. My journey has currently left me in this place where I’m tired of loving people.

With rather abusive undertones, my mom taught me that it’s important to serve other people. Do whatever you can to help them or do nice things for them. As a typical over-achiever, I threw everything into doing that. I did whatever I could to help people, even to my own detriment, even to the people that were mean to me in return. Whether it was family or friends or someone I barely knew, if there was something I saw that I though I could help them with or do something nice for them, I did it – no questions asked, nothing expected in return. Being in my parents’ fundamentalist household, there were obviously limits to what I could do. It was generally expected that the most important thing is obviously to be involved with church as much as possible. Growing up, we were there “serving” probably 4+ days a week. Then there was the “helping grandparents” as much as a few times a week, plus all of the other “service” things we did. As I got old enough to manage some of my own time, I was still involved with church about the same amount of time, plus work and school and any additional time I spent helping people or trying to do nice things for people. I don’t think I really felt overburdened with it and I got a certain amount of satisfaction from “doing the right thing”, but I was generally dying inside.

What I found when I stopped and looked at it was that the 20/80 rule is true… 20% of the people end up doing 80% of the work. I was ok with the work I was doing. What bothered me was twofold:

1. In all of this “doing nice things for people”, people felt very free to call when they needed something from me, but the minute I asked for something in return (even just friendship), whoa they’re just so busy and really don’t have time for anything right now. I looked back on life towards the end of college and found that nothing lasted. My desire for community was totally unfulfilled, even as I tried to put others first and do what I felt the Bible was saying we should be doing “in community”.

2. All of the things I did were never enough. Sure, I could serve somehow and certain people would say “wow, you’re making other people look bad since you’re doing so much”. But that didn’t stop anyone from asking for more and somehow being angry or disturbed if I couldn’t do it.

I gave a huge attempt at “dying to self” and putting other first and ended up alone with a dead ME. It’s a pretty sad place to be. So, as I finished college and since that time, I’ve stopped. I don’t serve anymore. I don’t go to church. I’m not the good little girl I once was. I still have no friends and probably no one really interested in my life and interests/passions, but in all of this I’m giving myself permission to not feel guilty about it. I am important too. I don’t have to be dead. I can have passions that don’t involve doing something for someone else.

At the moment, my belief is that: at least at certain points in life, Community doesn’t work for some people. They’re the ones that get taken advantage of. Or the ones that feel ignored in large crowds (always having people talk over you when you share something). Or the ones that don’t have the same interests as the other 95% of the group. They can be quiet and conform and maybe they’ll feel like a part of something for a little while, but no one really cares one way or another if they’re there or not. For now, I’m one of those people. I keep hoping that one day that will change. Maybe one day I’ll find the place where I fit in. Maybe one day I can love and be loved in return. Maybe one day I can serve someone and they’ll say “thank you” without thinking I should have given more.

Until that day happens, the most I can do for now is try my best to love my husband and child(ren) with certain boundaries that will allow me to still be me and not feel like I’m the only giver in the family. Maybe I’ll try to visit with my neighbors too. Once my children are a little older, maybe I will find one or two things I can do in the community to help out…we’ll see. Most of the time, this lack of action makes me feel a bit like I’m not a Christian anymore. I’m definitely not a church-going Christian like I used to be. But maybe sometimes we need to give ourselves permission for this. Maybe it’s ok to take care of ourselves and think of others not above ourselves, but somehow think of other’s well-being as being just as important as ours.