Being Great in the Small Things

My daughter recently told me she wanted to be something great when she was older. She's 11 now. My advice to her was right on, but I have to admit it is something that I struggle with to this day. So since I struggle to take my own advice I thought you might struggle with it as well. You see I want to be great too....and I am a grown up.

My advice on being great is simple. It is to do the little things well. It is to make every decision count no matter how small. Make every day intentional. Use the time God has given you on the earth to do all things well--even the insignificant. Sounds great...right?

In my prayer time this morning I was telling God how I just had had no time lately and felt overwhelmed with time constraint when before my eyes flashed the Facebook logo, the Twitter logo, my new Google Plus account and that all consuming Pinterest site that has my attention to see what Holiday decor I need to be planning. I had to repent. I had to confess that, in fact, I have more time than I would like to admit, but how I spend it might not be as God honoring as I would hope. I am missing the small things by doing my own things. The decision to stay on social media takes time from other areas of my life. 

What would my day look like if I woke and thought "What does God want to use me to do today?" What if the answer was to stay home and catch up on my laundry because God knows that tomorrow I will get a call from a friend in crisis and my whole day will be spent there? What if God knows my husband really needs the laundry done because he is stressed at work and it makes him feel good to see all of his t-shirts in his drawer when he gets home? I don't know about you, but my "God complex" makes me only want to do the great things. I don't want to do the mundane. I want to sit the bench and wait on God to call me in for something great! Maybe God is waiting for me to get off of Facebook and seek out His plan for my day. With so many distractions in our world finding time to "fit God in" is becoming harder and harder. 

I find it interesting that after Saul met Jesus on the Road to Damascus that he jumped in with both feet preaching in the local Synagogues where he was promptly run out of town. Paul was use to going big or going home. God sent him home and Paul spent nearly ten years in virtual isolation. I wonder if Paul's ego was still like his former Saul-self? I wonder if in benching Paul for a decade God was trying to teach him not only the scriptures, but a great personal lesson as well? Did the church shrink in those ten years? Nope. It had great growth. Did God NEED Paul? Nope. God could get it done on his own. Could God use a man like Paul? Absolutely. But Paul learned that God will get His plan done with or without Paul. God needed obedience and a humble willing heart. He needed him to go to these places to preach, but also build congregations which meant doing some of the mundane. Paul didn't take money for his time planting churches so he made tents to earn a living. Paul's line in Philippians about "doing all things through Christ who strengthens me" has nothing to do with football (although that is where I see it most these days). It has to do with surviving on little or much. It is about contentment. Am I content in the mundane or am I just a glory hog? Am I still my 11 year old self that wants to be great?

I don't want to go to a desert or be banished to learn these lessons. I want to learn from Paul. I am to do the planting or the watering and let God do the growing. Obedience in the small things of life and doing those well may lead to big things or maybe not, but the goal is God's glory...not mine. BUT out of God's glory comes my fulfillment. Being used by God under His terms is the greatest job on earth. Don't get caught up in comparing with others, just keep your head down in doing what God called YOU to do today. If it is laundry, then get out the Tide. 

Cleaning Out The Closet: Part 2

How to begin when my emotional closet is so full? One thing at a time is how we start with our physical closets. It takes time and intentionality to clean out our literal closets. The same goes for our emotional closets as well.

First of all, we have to open the closets in our life. We have to be courageous enough to look under our emotional bed and face the clutter that is there. Some have locked that closet and thrown away the key. For many the resentment of someone or the righteous anger is so ingrained in us to throw it out would be to lose a part of who we are. 

For example, I know a man whose wife cheated on him with his best friend. This best friend turned on my friend and began to spread terrible rumors and untruths. He was sly though and the wife never saw that side of her new love. My friend was bitter. He was wounded so deeply that he could not let this injustice go. He could admit that he had not been a perfect husband, but he endured many lies and hateful words throughout this ordeal that kept him reeling. He put that self righteous anger in the closet. He had been done wrong on so many levels. He never got an apology from either of the offending parties. It was a dark and lonely time. The years went on and from time to time he would get this injustice out and she would feel all over again the righteous indignation that he felt in the beginning. It felt good to be right. But what he could not see is that every time he mulled that over he was also becoming bitter. This event in his life, because he didn't let it go and put it in the closet, was spawning other clutter that was even tougher to let go of.  So now, when he goes to the emotional closet to do some purging it feels overwhelming so he closes the door and walks away. And the feelings of hurt and bitterness and anger and righteousness stay with him.

Why? What's the solution? No doubt this man was wronged and wounded by her closest friend and lover. But how could he have avoided the clutter nearly ten years later?

It starts with remembering who we are. We are sinners. In situations like I described above where the sin is open and "big" it is easy to point fingers, but at the foot of the cross all sin is equal. If it was not so then we could all walk around with measuring sticks. I could feel good about myself because my sin is not as bad as yours. I may gossip from time to time, but I would NEVER cheat on my husband. But my gossip can be just as wounding as a cheating spouse. My gossip is a betrayal just like cheating. God judges it all the same. Sin is sin.

Romans 2:1 says "You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things." ----OUCH!

Coming face to face with who WE are as a sinner in our own life shaves away at the self righteousness we can feel when we are "done wrong". Sometimes (okay...a lot of times) I am way more interested in sifting through your closet and looking at your sins than doing my own cleaning out. 

Back to my friend. When we look at ourselves honestly in light of the cross what leg do we have to stand on to not forgive someone else? Satan loves an unforgiving spirit that is stored away in our emotional closet because then he can create bitterness so much easier. Each of those stands in the way of a true view of the Cross. 

Confess and deal with your own sin and responsibility in your relationships. Grieve the losses and the wounds both that you caused and that were done to you. Spend time with Jesus hashing it out and be honest. He will take even your feeble attempts and make good with them. 

Bullying or Meanness...and does it matter?

I have been asked to speak to my children's school staff on the topic of bullying vs. meanness. This is a topic that has gotten a lot of press and conversation over the last few years starting with the Columbine shootings. As I gather my thoughts and do my research I would like to hear from some of you about your own experiences with bullying no matter which side you may have been on at the time. Maybe you are a parent with a child who is experiencing bullying or maybe you realize that you were a bully.

Do you think that bullying is a word that is overused? Do you think that sometimes kids are just mean and that doesn't make them a bully? 

Stopbullying.gov says this about the definition of bullying:

In order to be considered bullying, the behavior must be aggressive and include:

• An Imbalance of Power: Kids who bully use their power—such as physical strength, access to embarrassing information, or popularity—to control or harm others. Power imbalances can change over time and in different situations, even if they involve the same people.
• Repetition: Bullying behaviors happen more than once or have the potential to happen more than once.

Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose.

The imbalance of power is the key followed by the repetition. 

Have the incidents gone up in the last few years or are we more aware? Does the blame lie with the parents? Are we raising entitled and unempathetic children? How do we cut down on the bullying? Or is it kids being kids? 

I want to hear from you! Your thoughts and experiences! 

Cleaning out the Closets

What if you had a dinner party for several couples most of whom you did not know and you opened every closet and drawer in your home as it is RIGHT now? No straightening, no cleaning...as it stands. For some of my super organized friends that is perfectly fine, but for the vast majority of us that strikes fear and makes stomachs turn. I know it does for me. 

If you are like me when I have guests over I have a few places that are off limits and that is where the last minute clutter lives. The main part of my house is beautiful and clean. The candles are lit and the decorations are out, but if you walk into the closet under my stairs things might fall out on you. I, for one, would be mortified to open every closet and every drawer for people I don't know and even for some that I do know. I want you to have the impression that my party-ready house is my everyday house. And isn't it that way with our emotional clutter too? Don't we want people to think our church self or our party self is our true self? How many times have you seen couples in social settings and thought, "Wow...they really have it together" only to find out they are divorcing? They were projecting their party ready self and hiding the truth in the closets and drawers.

But in my life, Jesus already knows about my secret closet where I hide my anger and resentment. He knows about the drawer where my jealousy lives side by side with my insecurity. He has seen under my bed where I keep my critical spirit and self righteousness. Now I would never trot those things out at the dinner party just like I don't want you to accidentally open the junk drawer or walk into the laundry room where stacks of dirty clothes live. 

I think I am doing a great job of hiding all the mess in my life, but it leaks out. At first only my family sees my secrets, but slowly over time if I am not confessing and facing those closets and cleaning them out before God the mess begins to spill out into the living spaces of my life.  Just like closets in our home, the closets of our life can only hold so much clutter. We have to clean them out which means opening them and looking through the stuff. That can feel scary and overwhelming.

Whatever clutter you have in your life closet just start with one thing and sit with that one thing before God who already has a detailed inventory anyway. Confess it and ask for His strength in throwing it out. Don't be an emotional hoarder!

Psalms 139:1-15

You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before,
    and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
    too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
 even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

 For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
 My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.

Fear

I am so afraid of what people will think of me. It is a quality that is good in some regards and limiting in most every other way. It makes me polite and keeps my social graces in tact, but it also holds me back. Putting this blog out is one of the ways that I am working to overcome that fear. These are MY thoughts and MY words and my prayer over this blog is that it is touching and encouraging to someONE, but it might not be to EVERYone. However, in truth...I want EVERYone to LOVE my thoughts and my words. Why? Because that somehow validates me and makes me feel good. Because sometimes (okay...a lot of times) I get caught up in being defined by what I do and what people think of me instead of what GOD did FOR me.

I am who and what I am because I have a God who loved me so much that He was willing to die for me and without that I am nothing. I know that, but in doing life, I forget that and I start to buy the lie that I am who I am because of what all I have accomplished and done in my life. The flip side of that thought process is that when I don't accomplish something or I fail my worth goes down, depression sets in and I am on a downward spiral in my thinking. This kind of thinking leads to fear. When I tie my worth and my identity to what I DO instead of who God IS then I set myself up for disappointment and faulty thinking which can lead to bad decisions.

...take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.-2 Corinthians 10:5

If we can master this (or even just begin to practice it), there is so much peace in giving our thoughts to God, but why is it is so so hard to do what this verse says? EVERY thought?...all those negative thoughts when I am cleaning up after someone AGAIN or feeling righteously angry over a TRUE injustice? EVERY thought when I am not getting from my husband what I need? EVERY thought when a friend is distancing herself? Yes, God wants it all. I have had times in my life where I was so righteously angry, where I knew I was so right that I needed to give it to God and I just wanted to hold it another day because doesn't it feel good to be right? When I finally prayed about it I told God I don't want to give this to you, I want to stay mad, I don't care, but God is so good that he took my pathetic confession and worked in my heart anyway. He began to remind me of my own sin and I fought it off..."No Lord, but you don't understand" and He put thoughts in front of me of my own shortcomings and by the end of my prayer I knew that even though  I was right...I was far from righteous and therefore I was wrong. Fear of man and lack of faith in the God who knows us and created us is backward thinking that will hold us back and trap us in faulty thinking.  

Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is kept safe.- Proverbs 25:29

Hard Decisions in Blending a Family

When my husband and I first talked about getting married and blending five kids with an age gap of 13 years it actually sounded like a great adventure. The Brady Bunch minus one. But the reality has been much different...first of all there was no Alice!!

I will start our story at the beginning. We actually have an easy beginning. Our children liked the person we were marrying and they liked each other. No child had a significant issue at the time and all were pretty good kids. We had BEST case scenario. So many of you out there have issues with children not liking the person that you love or not liking the children of the person you love. That complicates it even more! Even in our best case scenario we had hard decisions that helped make things better in the long run but were hard calls in the short term. 

To Move or Not to Move

The first big decision a blended family faces is where to live. There may be some that disagree with me but I am passionate that the best start for most new families is a fresh start. That means selling homes and starting in a new home that is this new family's home. Blended families have a natural dividing line that exists along bloodlines and staying in one of the existing houses maintains that divide longer than need be. 

So many blended families justify staying in one spouse's house for financial reasons which can make for an awkward start to a new life. If this house was shared with a former spouse there are memories there for the kids and for you...even if you repaint. If the husband is moving into the wife's house and he brings his children into that house then it is always "her" house. Staying in one person's house makes it tougher to get over the natural division lines that exist in blended families.  A new house and new surroundings helps with a fresh clean start for everyone. Everyone is in a new place, not just half. I know in this housing market and economy that cannot always happen, but I would encourage you to look at it seriously and pray about it diligently. 

Balancing the emotions of the kids while blending is hard. Moving will bring up a lot of emotions both positive and negative. Our decision to move was heart wrenching for me because I had brought both my children into this house as babies and my ex-husband and I had redone this beautiful old home together. My heart and soul was in this house. Okay...all the more reason to move. Just because it was hard didn't mean it wasn't right. I could list a thousand reasons why everyone should have moved to my house. In the end I had to think of the long run and the larger goal. It wasn't just about my kids anymore. It was about everyone's comfort. Making sure everyone felt good about our new start. At least this way ALL the kids were being uprooted and it gave us a common goal: REDECORATE! 

We bought a house that was not too close to either of our old neighborhoods and we started out as the Dews. No one in our new neighborhood knew us any other way. It was nice. It was right. All the kids got to pick their room colors and we had a fun time making this new house our home. Three years later this IS home. We all had to make new friends (including Mom and Dad) and we all had to adjust together. It was tough, but that decision was still one of our best. I have never prayed like I prayed about where to start our family. My husband will tell you that the night before we made the offer on the house we are in now was one of the most gut wrenching nights ever, but the next morning we knew. I have never looked back. 

This first decision was one of many hard sacrificial decisions we have made as a couple for  our family. It was filled with tears and stomach aches, but in the long run it has proven to be what we had hoped...unifying. In blending that is always the ultimate goal...unity! And each decision for a newly blended family has to be one of self sacrifice for the whole. It is hard when you feel that maybe your side of the family is giving more than the other, but if you keep communicating with your spouse and fighting the urge to protect "your side", but look for the win-win, the decisions may not be any easier but the outcomes will be sweeter because each step will have been intentional. 

Parenting Through a Crisis...and Beyond

I want to start this post by stating without at doubt and so everyone hears me clearly I AM NO PARENTING EXPERT. If there ever has been anything I have done in my life that has humbled me more...it is parenting. Just when I think I have it under control the rug gets ripped from beneath my expert parenting ways and I find myself looking at the wall asking God, "what now?". There was never a time I felt this more than when my husband left and I had two small children. We separated twice in their young lives, but the final time was when Emma Kate was 4 and Meg had just turned 3. Those were dark days and I am sad to say that the girls got whatever was left of me and not my first fruits. I was just surviving.

I have a friend that I am watching now go through a similar situation. She has lost her husband and is left with five children under the age of 12 and a business to run that she has no idea how to run. Until now, she has home schooled four out of the five and has been a stay-at-home mom. She now finds herself meeting with attorneys and banks and CPAs and trying to figure out how to salvage the business that provides for her family. She also feels that she is giving her kids the leftovers. 

In situations where we as parents are grieving it is hard to give to our kids. We do because that is who we are. We are still Mommy and still Daddy, but we are overwhelmed with our own emotions. We try to be strong in front of them and grieve alone, but they are smarter than we think. Even a baby can tell when Mommy just isn't herself. There is a temptation in these situations to give a little more to the kids and slack up a bit and that is certainly what I did. I would say to anyone in a crisis to fight that feeling. If there was ever a time your kids need structure and rules it is now. They need to know that if yesterday fighting with their brother got them put in their room that today that is also the case. You see their world is set up by your rules and boundaries for them. If sassy talk gets them alone time or an earlier bedtime then that is still the rule. Easier said than done. 

When we are in a crisis and we feel that we are giving our kids our leftovers our guilt says to ease up on them. Or that their acting out is because of the situation the family finds themselves in. Sometimes that may be true, but truer than that is a testing of the boundaries that kids do naturally when they feel their world tilting. The best thing you can do as a parent is reassure them by being the Mom or Dad that you were the day before your crisis. 

Now here is the honest part...I know all of this because I didn't do this always. As a single mom I gave in and I moved boundaries and I parented from fear and guilt. And I reaped what I sowed. I had 2 little girls who were not always well behaved and took advantage of their mother. This became glaringly apparent when I met my husband and we blended our family. I continue to deal with behavior in my girls that was cemented in those days of single parenthood. I will tell you...it is much harder now to go back and undo at 10 and 11 than it would have been to have just stayed the course at 3 and 4. What keeps me on track now is that it is easier to get this in hand at 10 and 11 than it will be at 15 and 16. 

I have been int that place where I was too tired to get up and make the girls do what I had asked so they win by my lack of follow through. As their primary parent what am I teaching them? If they can outlast me, they get their way. In a bigger context what am I teaching them about obedience to God and other authority figures? The same. If my child sasses me and makes me feel guilty because she knows how to push my buttons and I give her what she wants instead of what she needs, what have I taught her? Manipulation works. I know all of this because I have taught my girls all of those things by the way I have parented them. By God's grace I am working to undo those mistakes now, but if I can encourage any of you who are in the early stages of crisis, please don't make the same mistakes I made. It is a slow fade, but guilt and fear and not your friends in parenting. 

If you have a crisis in your life, divorce, death of a spouse, loss of a child, financial difficulties that change your lifestyle...don't let it change your parenting. Kids need boundaries and rules. It is how they feel safe and if there are none or they shift then the kids don't feel as safe. So in a crisis the BEST thing you can do for your child is to strengthen the rules and boundaries. It is also the hardest.

Ephesians 6:1 "Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor your father and mother--which is the FIRST commandment with a promise--that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy a long life on earth"

By not asking for obedience and honor from our children we are stripping them of the promise that it may go well with them.

Do I Even Have Anything to Blog About?

 It seems like everyone is blogging these days. My daughter has a blog, my husband has a blog; even my 66 year old father is blogging. So I decided, so as not to be left behind, I would start a blog too. I mean, come on, all these people can do it...so can I! As I looked at the blank page with the cursor blinking at me, begging me to type something, I realized...I don't have anything to blog about. I guess I will start this blog telling you a little about me and how it is that I feel this need to blog.

I am a Christian. I was born into a family with a long line of faith. My grandfather was a preacher and my dad was a deacon. My mom taught Sunday school and we were in church every time the doors were open. I cannot ever remember a time God was not present in our home, but I also feel that I have always had a special connection to God since I was little. He has been a real and present force on my life always. I have not always responded to that force, but He is true to His word...He has never left me or forsaken me. 

I am a wife and an ex-wife. I have an amazing husband that loves me more than I deserve and gives me more grace than I could ever ask for. He is my best friend and closest confidant. He makes me laugh, he challenges me and he makes me crazy when he doesn't pick up his cups from a thousand places around the house. I have an ex-husband who is a good dad to the girls and makes our parenting relationship pretty easy....most of the time.

I am a 41 year old mother of two beautiful daughters and a bonus mom to 3 wonderful bonus kids. Our family is not unique in this day and age as we are a blended one. As most families who are blended we arrived here through a series of painful events that led us to a union that has its own ups and downs. Blending families is not for the faint of heart or for the faithless. One of the topics I will blog on the most will be honest reflections on a blended family. 

I am a Master's student in seminary. I am working on my Master's in Christian Counseling through seminary. It has been a long road and I am a little past the half way point. With God's grace I will one day be done!! This journey has challenged and strengthened my faith in ways I could not have imagined. Each class I take seems to have so much life application for what is going on in my own struggles. Funny how God is always getting my attention.

I have decided to write this blog because my life experience is not unique. I am all those things above, but I am just a girl (see...I still think of myself as a girl) getting through life trying to make right decisions, raise kids, keep the peace and love my husband in a way that makes him feel special all while trying to get my own needs met. I am every woman. I feel fat sometimes, I don't exercise enough, I eat bad more than I should, I yell at my kids, I yell at my husband, I have hateful thoughts about people that I actually love. I am a sinner. I am every woman. 

My goal in this blog is to be real. Women are bad about comparing themselves to others to make themselves feel better. I don't need a study to tell me this. I am a woman who does this, I see all my friends do this and I have four daughters who already do this. I want this blog to strip away my need to please and be perfect. I mess up daily, hourly sometimes and I want that to be reflected here so that if one person sees God's grace in my crazy world then He will be glorified. I am just a girl, trying to get through the life God created for me. Some days I win some and some days I lose!

Thanks for sharing my journey as I Dew life!

Shannon Dew