out of Kadesh

Before we were parents, we were such good parents. Kids only EAT chicken fingers and pizza and grilled cheese sandwiches because that’s all parents FEED them, we said. If you FEED kids vegetables, they’ll eat vegetables! We were so smart.

When we had Noah, I was all, I’ma feed him smashed up vegetables and other smashed up food from our own plates so that he will have a wide variety of tastes. Cause I was so smart.

Now Noah is two. Every week I plan a list of vegetable-heavy menu items that I will painstakingly shop for, prepare, and set in front of him. And every week he will ignore what I have set in front of him and ask for “mo’ bread peese.” Every time we sit down to dinner I try to mask a green bean or pepper or vegetable in some rice or cheese and feed him a forkful, only to watch him roll it around in his mouth and spit out the healthy part. He’ll glare at me and say “EW” or “NO.” And then he will refuse to eat another bite.

What happened? We don’t eat fast food; we don’t eat junk. We eat only organic fruits and vegetables, homemade, whole grain breads, organic dairy, and very occasionally, lean meats like chicken or fish. His sugar intake is extremely limited. If we go out to a restaurant and they have all beige foods on the kid’s menu, we just order a healthy side for him and share off our own plates.

But every time, he will pick out the mac-n-cheese. Chicken. Bread, bread, bread. Rice. Pizza. Cheese. A tortilla, PLAIN. Pasta, PLAIN. ICE CREAM. I made vegetable pad thai the other night, which turned out REALLY delicious, I must say, and he spit it out and was all “NO NO NO EWWW NO!” What the??? (And while we’re on the subject, where did this behavior come from? I certainly have never done that when I’ve tasted something. Maybe I’d do that if I accidentally ate poop or something, but I can’t envision ever having such a violent reaction to FOOD.) I had to rinse the pasta and the veggies so that he would eat it because he wanted it PLAIN, for God’s sake. It was ridiculous!

It’s like toddlers just know they’re supposed to be picky eaters who refuse food that is not pure starch. They learn it all during their stay in the womb, and then they send each other eye messages when they’re passing at the playground. I think the bestseller is called the Post-Uterus Bible or something, but I’m not sure because I’m a grown-up and not allowed to see it. (I’ll tell you a secret, Reader: I’m still smart, though. For lunch I feed him frozen “chicken nuggets” which are actually made out of like mushrooms or something. He only THINKS he’s getting toddler food, HA-HA!) (If you see him, please don’t tell him.) (Unless you want him at your house for lunch every day.)

Now here’s where he displays the oddest dinner behavior of all, y’all. Two nights ago we were sitting down to dinner and he was beginning his usual pre-meal protest. He looked at the plate that I set in front of him, which was devoid of pizza and ice cream and full of broccoli and carrots and other things that came straight from Hell, picked up his fork, and began prodding the contents with a look of utmost displeasure. Then came the “Nooooooooooo! No! No! No!”s as he searched, unsuccessfully, for a piece of cheese or bread underneath the offending vegetables. Then, as Lance and I sat down, he set down his fork, bowed his head low over his plate, and held out his hands: one to Lance and one to me.

Lance and I were nonplussed. What the heck was this kid doing now? Witchcraft, to rid his plate of miserable health? Was he prostrating himself before us in an effort to win our mercy? We stared at him for a few seconds, waiting to see what was to come next, but he just stayed still like that, head bowed, hands outstretched. “Um…. do you…. want to pray or something?” we asked him. “Yeah,” came his muffled reply.

Ok, freeze frame. Lance and I pray together over most meals, and obviously Noah is present for those. But our prayer is a memorized one that we say together. We never hold hands, and we NEVER bow heads. We usually look at each other and, in turn, at Noah. So the thought that is flying through both our heads is something like, “What the fuuuuh???”

“You know, Buddy, you don’t have to bow your head like that in order to talk to God…” No reply. No movement. Just chin tucked serenely onto chest, and waiting, outstretched little hands.

He wants to pray! He wants to…pray? Not only does he want to pray, he wants to pray like this? All, fundamental-like? (He saw this in a book, Lance thinks? Or maybe he remembers seeing his grandparents do this?) So… sure, then, I guess? (Yes, that is how many question marks are necessary, because that’s how many were hovering over our heads that night.) We all hold hands to pray and I say something like, “Dear God, Please help Noah to love this delicious dinner and eat it all up, amen.” Just as a joke, y’all. But I swear to God he says, “Ay-mee-uhn,” like he’s from Nashville, picks up his fork, and starts shoveling food into his face.

ZOMG, that prayer WORKED!? IT WAS LIKE MAGIC. Of course, a couple of forkfuls in, he realized what he was doing and starting spitting food out and acting normal again, but at first IT WAS LIKE MAGIC.

First things first: I am operating off of four hours of sleep, so my mind is a little bit fuzzy. My mind is a LOT fuzzy. You don’t understand the weird things you think about when you are rocking your toddler for the seventeenth time in a three hour span.

Aside: You become a little more forgiving with yourself, too, when your cat meows at you after you’ve already filled his food bowl but he didn’t bother to go LOOK IN IT, and you scream at him that you ALREADY DID IT FOR GOD’S SAKE YOU DAMN CAT and then throw something because it feels like the right way to punctuate your sentence. Your HUSBAND might not be as forgiving, as he stumbles into the kitchen and tells you to go back to bed and he’ll take over because, as you can see in his eyes, he is afraid for his life. Your TODDLER might not be as forgiving either, and he starts wondering if maybe he was adopted and he should start looking for his birth parents, who would surely be saner, like himself. Also they would probably not serve broccoli at dinner, which would be awesome. But YOU are more forgiving of yourself. My mantra: I didn’t do it. SLEEP DEPRIVATION did it.

So this thought is borne out of a severe lack of sleep, and will be written down in that same spirit. Feel free to back out of this post now if you would like.

Why do we think that God is good?

I heard someone say “God is good” at a coffee shop a few weeks ago, and it actually bothered me at the time. Here was this well-dressed, latte-sipping girl who was surrounded by a friendly audience, and I really rolled my eyes as I walked by and overheard her. To be fair, I have no idea what she was talking about. She could have been saying “God is good because He created the Universe,” or “God is good because there has finally been a breakthrough and Unicef is able to get through the tyrannical Somalian government in order to get food to those starving people” (there hasn’t), or “God is good because He healed someone’s cancer.” But I seriously doubt it. When I saw her toothy smile and heard the way she said it, my mind unwittingly drifted to the myriad of wonderful things that might have happened to her today to make her pronounce God’s goodness with such unshakable confidence. Like, she got an A on that chemistry final. Or, she tripped and fell on the sidewalk but her pantyhose DIDN’T RUN.

It’s totally unfair of me, y’all. I judged her. I know, I know, lest I will be judged. I am sorry. It was wrong. But it did make me think, in a sleepy stupor last night, what it means for God to be good. Because, I will be honest, at 2:30 in the morning I was NOT feeling God’s goodness. Because, at 2:30am, I decided, God was NOT being good… to me.

I think when people nonchalantly say “Oh, God is just so good,” they are talking about all the great stuff that happened to them this week. Or maybe bad stuff happened, but to put it in perspective, they comment that God is good because at least they still have food, shelter, clothes, etc. I just don’t think people are thinking about those millions of people out there who DON’T have food, shelter, and clothing. Even (gasp) OTHER BELIEVERS. Could a Somalian mother say God is good after losing her child to starvation? Could a homeless man say God is good after spending another night in the snow? Could the victims of any of the numerous natural disasters that have occurred recently remark to their neighbors that God is good? Where was God when that child was dying? Where was He when the homeless man lost his house, his family, and the last bed at the homeless shelter? Where was God during the earthquake, the tsunami, the hurricane, the tornado?

Is God really good if I see no evidence of it in my own life? If my son never sleeps, no matter how often I beg God to change this one thing for us, is God good? Is He good only when good things happen to me?

Conclusion time. I still think God is good.

BUT.

I think God is good regardless of my personal happiness. I think God being good means God is loving, and kind, and generous. Which means I also think praying that you get that super close parking space at Walmart, and then calling it God’s favor when you do, has nothing whatsoever to do with God’s goodness, or really even with God at all. I think if you’ve got bank, that’s awesome, but I don’t think it’s because God is good. (If that were true, wouldn’t it follow that God is BAD when I, also a woman of faith, go bankrupt?) God’s goodness can’t be contingent on our circumstances. So I think He’s good for one reason: the people and the world He created.

Here it is, the hippiest thing I’ve ever thought: We are all God. Now before you think I’m blaspheming or becoming Buddhist, which is the same thing to some of you I know, let me explain. I seriously think we are praying for God to do all these things and He’s like, uh, yeah, I already did that when I put other people on Planet Earth. Take, since I am obsessed with it and can’t stop mentioning it in this post, the craziness in the Horn of Africa. I can pray that God change things there, and that’s fine, but that can’t be all I do. Then I can’t sit back and be like, where the heck is God? Because God is in me. God is ME. So I have to open my purse, or write my congressperson and tell him or her that I want our government involved, or blog to make others aware of it, etc. God is good because He made me and He made you, Reader, and we are a people with compassion for our fellow man, a people with generous and loving hearts, a people who want things to be better for our kids.

Natural disasters happen, but I don’t think they are God’s fault. And so when your house gets spared from the flood, I don’t think it’s a reflection of God’s goodness. I think it’s just science, and sometimes science sucks y’all.

BUT. (Number 2)

I think there are reflections of God’s goodness every day. When your house is destroyed by a tornado, the people that give you a warm bed and a meal reflect the goodness of God. Love. Generosity. Kindness. These are the aspects of His character, and I believe He is good because there is goodness in people.

Otherwise, God is nothing more than a magic wand, and when I wave it and it works, He’s good. And I just can’t reason with that kind of shallow faith.

This thought will help me tonight, when my son refuses to sleep and I ask God for help and nothing happens because God is not a baby-behavior-wielding-genie. But I will still question God’s goodness tonight, because a piece of me wants to see it played out in my own comforts. And tomorrow I will be overtired and irrational, but I will remember that it’s not God’s fault that Noah is cutting canines. It’s just life.

And someday, when he starts sleeping peacefully, I will still give thanks to God, but I will remember that God is good regardless of Noah’s sleep habits.

And it would help me remember this if you would buy me a cup of coffee, Reader, because God’s goodness can be reflected in you making my life better. Thank you. (Just kidding. But seriously.)

One of my favorite bloggers, Matthew Paul Turner over at Jesus Needs New PR, wrote a post recently and I was sincerely moved by this nugget:

“…how is it possible to seek truth when you’re convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that you already know it by heart? How can truth affect us, change us, make us into creatures that more resemble Christ if our truths aren’t in some ways fluid and capable of seeping into life’s cracks when we need them to?”

I read it to Lance, who raised his eyes and nodded, and said, “Whoa. Truth.”

And I was all, “Yes, exactly.”

And he was all, “I didn’t even mean to do that.”

Over the past year, some of the “truths” I thought I knew about my faith have been ripped away from me like they were sheets on a legal pad, crumpled into a ball and tossed into the trash, only to be picked up again, unfolded, and duct-taped back onto the pad, then ripped away again and torn into shreds, then picked up and taped back together, and on and on it goes.

A good friend of mine thinks ambiguity in faith is healthy; she says she feels like a place of questioning is a good place to be. I had a hard time with that at first, because of Noah. How do I teach my son the difference between right and wrong (or what I used to think was Right and Wrong) when I think everything is a gray area now? But my wise and laid-back husband has, through a series of difficult conversations, made me feel like that level of questioning might be healthier than if we were to attack our innocent child with a list of dos and don’ts, blacks and whites, rights and wrongs.

Maybe when he asks hard questions, it’s perfectly fine to stop pretending like we get it and be honest with ourselves and him and say, “I don’t know, but here’s what I think and why.” There are values on which we base our beliefs, and as long as we can say, “We believe what we do because we know that the Christ-like thing to do in EVERY situation is whatever is loving to other people,” I think we’re going to be ok.

And after reading that profound thought about the nature of truth, I know that’s the good and fair thing to do.

In this rare moment of peace, I’m sitting here looking out my window at the snow falling in my front yard. In Tennessee. For the third day in a row. The Bubbs is asleep, the Hubbs is working, the house is semi-clean, all the laundry is folded and put away, and the dishwasher is running in that swoosh, swoosh, swoosh way it has. And I only half want to take a nap, which is really saying something. I could get used to this. I’m such a homebody that the prospect of being snowed in is always exciting for me, although I still wonder if I could convince Lance to snow-boot it up with me and walk down to Eastland to get some lunch later.

I hate making lunch.

January is a great month. I used to hate it, because the holidays were over and suddenly you have the entire year standing in front of you like a great big wall, and you wonder how you’ll ever get over it, but I have reconsidered. It’s a month of beginnings. Of resolutions. Of endless possibilities. The old behind you, the new in front of you, like a breath of fresh air. On December 31, you can put down all the baggage you carried with you all year, and take your first step without it all weighing down on your back. A clean slate.

It feels nice.

And even though Spring seems so dreadfully far away, right now I’m looking at a cardinal hopping around on a blanket of fluffy snow and it seems symbolic somehow, like all the baptist hymns I grew up with that talk of being washed in the blood of the Lamb and being made white as snow.

I made resolutions this year. I don’t do it every year because they are usually just another source of guilt-ridden anxiety for me, and I feel like I have enough of that already, but this year I made some. And now you’re all, “God, PLEASE don’t tell me your resolutions, lady.” Believe me, I TOTALLY get you. Being an avid blog reader, my eyes are tired of rolling around in their sockets every time I read how someone else vows to lose 25 pounds and their 3-step goal program to get there. Good. Do it. Seize the day and all that. I won’t tell you all my goals, so you can move your mouse away from the “X” at the top of this tab.

There is just one thing, though. I have resolved to chronicle the Great Crisis of Faith 2010. It’s possibly the most important leg of my Faith j0urney so far, and even though I haven’t quite reached the end, I hope writing it all down will help me get to that elusive light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

And while you chew on that, oh Faithful Reader, here’s some more food for thought. As Lance and I drank cocktails last Sunday afternoon we stumbled upon a most interesting question that has been haunting me ever since. Last weekend I was out in Green Hills, which I hate because it’s full of yuppies and their yuppie cars, when suddenly a tall, gorgeous woman walked by and, after my obvious double-take and spluttering of the coffee I had just sipped, I realized it was Nicole Kidman! I love her! I tried really hard not to gawk at her, which is impossible given her breathtaking beauty, and I elbowed Lance and kicked my friend Kelly and whisper-shrieked that NICOLEKIDMANISRIGHTBEHINDYOUOHMYGOD! Later, when I was recounting (in vivid detail) how Nicole Kidman, emitting an inhuman glow, had been three feet away from me reading a newspaper and talking to her husband (Keith Whatshisname) in her purring Australian accent, my dad asked me if I had gotten her autograph. “Are you kidding?! No way! I can’t go up to her!” My dad scoffed at me but then I asked him if he’d have seen her, would he have gone up and asked for an autograph? He paused a second in thought and then laughed, “No, probably not.” Yeah. BECAUSE SHE’S TOO AWESOME, and like, WHO AM I?

So while Lance and I were talking about this for the millionth time (or maybe I should say, when I was talking about it for the millionth time and Lance was listening) (or maybe I should say, pretending to listen) (it’s not his fault; how many times can you feign interest in the same sentence that begins “Can you BELIEVE we saw…” or even “Would you at least CONSIDER a threesome with…?”), I asked him who he would be completely floored to see sitting in a coffee shop? And he answered, Morgan Freeman.

And I’m like, Uh, YEAH, because Morgan Freeman is like, God.

And for anyone who has seen (or even HEARD of) Bruce Almighty or Evan Almighty, you know I mean that he played God in a couple of movies, but that statement made my brain do a back flip, and I thought of a new question. The haunting one, y’all.

If you were to walk into your favorite coffee shop today and see Jesus sitting there, sipping a latte and reading the paper (or finger-scrolling on the screen of His Holy iPad, if you’re a poser and that’s your thing), what would you do? If you’re not a believer this probably won’t mean as much to you, but feel free to ponder nonetheless. If you are a believer, seriously, think for a second what you would do.

Response 1

You would run up to Him and bow your face to the floor. You would pull a Mary M and start weeping and wipe off His feet with your hair.

Response 2

You would walk up and give Him a hug or a high-five. You’d say, “Hey.”

Response 3

You’d say, “Jesus! Comrade! Can I get you a refill? Buy you a muffin?”

Response 4

You’d bring your kid up to Him and humbly ask for His blessing. Or if you didn’t like your kid you’d be like, “Suffer this one, if you CAN.”

Response 5

“OMG JESUUUS! I love your work in Matthew 5! Will you sign my NIV, which I carry with me at all times?”

Response 6

You would put your hand over your brow so He wouldn’t see you, nudge your version of Lance, be all, “Oh my GOD it’s… GOD,” and scurry out of His line of vision, before He caught you pretending not to stare.

Guess which one I am.

While I was sitting there, cocktail poised in the air, paralyzed with the weight of realization at how I would react to seeing the Savior in Ugly Mugs, I thought of something else. You know how you have 500 friends on Facebook, but only like 20 are ACTUALLY friends? When I first moved to Nashville, I had the unhappy experience of seeing an acquaintance from high school at the movies, and I literally stopped in my tracks, turned, and started walking the other way to avoid having to have an awkward conversation with her. She’s my friend on Facebook, y’all. Sometimes I even comment on her pictures. But she’s not a friend, obviously. A friend you greet with enthusiasm when you see her unexpectedly, right?

So then, is Jesus is my Facebook friend? An acquaintance I wouldn’t know what to say to if I saw Him in my coffee shop? One I’d avoid until He left, when I’d finally feel at ease again?

I don’t want that, y’all.

I’m not sure how I identify myself anymore in matters of Faith, as I will delve into later in the Chronicling of the Great Crisis of Faith 2010, but I knew, in that frozen moment, that’s not who I want Jesus to be in my life. So in finding my way toward the end of what has been a very long, arduous road throughout the past year, I guess I’ll start there. This one thing I’m sure of. I want more out of my relationship with Christ than a casual, awkward acquaintanceship.

I’ve been baking a lot. A LOT a lot. Part of it is that this time of year is perfect for baking; it’s FINALLY cold outside, the leaves are falling, and mostly the pumpkin cans are flying off the shelf and into my grocery cart, and then I get home and I’m all, Lance, I swear, I didn’t even LOOK at the pumpkin. And just what are we going to do with 17 cans of pumpkin? And then the Brown Eyed Baker’s all like, Ooo I know! I know! It’s all her fault I’m getting paunchy again. My belly is like dough, which I guess makes sense since that’s all that I’ve been eating.

I’m depressed.

On some level I realize that Noah waking up every hour and wrestling around like a pig in mud must be a contributing factor. I’ve finally drifted off and I wake up to Noah’s toes underneath my bottom rib or inside my kidneys, and he’s pushing against them with all his chubby leg strength. Or I wake up to him rolling around and around and around like a sausage on a spit. Or I wake up to him crying. It’s usually around 3 or 4 in the morning that, unbidden, the image of that beautiful wooden knife block sitting so innocently on the kitchen counter appears in my mind. And then Noah, who has been horizontally climbing my body, butts his head into my upper lip, which simultaneously hurts my face and my heart, and I wrap my arms around his little body and squeeze him to me. And after an entire night of that, I wonder into the kitchen to drown myself in coffee and try not to zombie out at some crucial moment during the day right as Noah is sticking batteries in his mouth or pulling the lamp down on top of his head.

It’s also because Lucy has to get a $2,800 surgery for her torn ACL. Which is no big deal, because we’ll just dip into our savings account, which we have full of money for just such occasions as this. OH WAIT. And don’t you feel kind of like the vet is the same as your car mechanic? You don’t know what the hell they’re talking about, so they could really say anything and you’d have to go along with it. “Uh, ma’am, I’m afraid your Rooter-Scooter is busted. Now a new one has to come over from Tribethany, so with the new part plus the labor, that’s gonna run you about seven gagillion dollars. Plus tax.” And I’m all, “Oh gosh, um, what’s going to happen if I don’t replace the Rooter-thingie?” “Well, ma’am, you’re lookin’ at an Enginetopia Turnoverby, which’ll blast into your Gastometer, which could cause instant death for everyone in the back seat, followed by slow death by Entrapcementia for everyone in the front seat. In fact, I wouldn’t drive it off this lot if I were you; I’d just leave it here overnight. Which, by the way, runs you $600 per day while we wait for that part. Your choice.”

Yeah that’s what the vet sounds like, too. Sure, she tore her whu-huh? Ok and she’s in pain you say? And if I don’t do surgery she’ll just continue to mope around and never run again, making me, as a pet owner, no better than those guys that do dog fights? And I should just go ahead and saw off my arm now and give it to you as payment? Oh, right of course, that’s just the downpayment. Well, at least let me keep my middle finger, I’M GOING TO NEED IT IF I EVER PASS YOU ON THE STREET.

Also, ugh, family issues. OH HI GUYS. I DON’T EVEN CARE THAT YOU’RE READING THIS. What did I do to deserve such hostility from people who are supposed to love me unconditionally? (Rhetorical, y’all.) And who are supposed to love my son who, were he just a little bit older, would wonder where all those people who used to hang around him have gone? In a way I’m glad this is happening now, before he feels like somehow he’s to blame for their sudden disappearance from his life. I’m facing a Thanksgiving, Noah’s first birthday, and Christmas cut off from my family, who are only going to be 20 minutes away! It’s like divorce, only I didn’t choose it and I didn’t get any perks in the settlement.

Except maybe some peace. At least I have that to look forward to once the pain and anger subside.

I wish I knew how to just be ok with it. It’s unfair that while they cling to each other, I’m the one left bitter and lonely. But there’s fight in me too, and that keeps me going. However cold and clouded I may feel, there’s an ember deep down that represents my son. I will not let him go through this. I may be weak for my part, but for him I will be strong.

Possibly tying all this together is how far from grace I have felt really for the past year. My faith in God has changed, and I’m trying to figure out what that looks like. Earlier this year I explained how it started with Noah not sleeping. I prayed and prayed for help, but no help came. Instead, I got IMAGES OF KITCHEN KNIVES. Then at some point I wondered, if God isn’t answering, for whatever reason, even if that reason is that babies will be babies and some don’t sleep, what makes me think God will answer my plea for Them (thanks, Jena) to keep Noah safe? My prayers for him to not die of SIDS tonight? My prayers to keep him healthy and strong? Babies will be babies and some die… how is it any different?

And then I started thinking, what’s the point of praying if God’s just gonna do what God’s gonna do? I’m still trying to figure things out. But I will tell you this story. Noah had his blood checked for lead at the pediatrician’s office, and they called us and told us his lead level was high. They said the only thing they were going to do was recheck in three months, and if it was still high we’d discuss what action needed to be taken. So I got off the phone with the nurse, and sat down on my front steps and put my head in my hands, and instinctively I began to cry out to the One who is my Help. And it didn’t sound like my prayers used to sound before all this began in my Spirit. It sounded like me saying “God” over and over again, and trying to formulate some other words, but saying “God” in their place.

And Reader, I swear it was the strongest prayer I’ve prayed in years. Afterward, I felt better. I mean, still worried as hell of course, but hopeful, like maybe everything wouldn’t end in complete catastrophe. And like my prayers had broken through. Like God was beside me on the porch, and like I mattered to Him after all.

It was a beautiful discovery, that at least I know whatever I’m going through I will always have that. I will always have my God.

That, and my fabulous pumpkin chocolate-chip cookies.

I just made this corn and chili chowder recipe I found from The Pioneer Woman, who I always think I can out-spice, and then I’m wrong and I suffer the consequences to my shame. I’m like a guy when it comes to how much heat I can stand; I can’t let anyone beat me. I’ll accept any challenge, too, and I’ll try and act all manly about it, not reaching for my glass of ice water even when my eyes are watering and smoke starts coming out of my ears. The Pioneer Woman said to put in two chipotle peppers, and I was all, I need to put in THREE chipotle peppers. That’s just how I roll, y’all. It’s my own fault really.

Just like that time I bought a bag of Habenero chips at my favorite deli. My dad was with me, and he got some too. I wasn’t even worried about it. After the first chip, my dad and I are like, “Oh yeah, that’s some decent heat! Yum!” Then the third chip hurt a little more, and my dad and I were playing chicken like, who’s gonna wuss out and grab their water first? The fifth chip blinded me for three days. Lance had rolled up his t-shirt and was patting out flames that were erupting spontaneously all over my body. My dad was openly weeping. It was a dark day in our household, y’all. It’s embarrassing, really. We were defeated by a bag of potato chips. And that bag of chips remains on a pedestal in my mind. In fact, at the supermarket the other day I reached for a block of “Habenero cheddar,” like a kid in a candy store, my eyes all aglow. I actually touched it with my finger before the memory of the chips reached out from behind it and slapped me upside the head. I backed away, slowly.

So I just made this soup, and I took one bite of it and my tongue exploded in flames. It was all we had for dinner, so I managed to eat the whole bowl, and I figured hey, I just lost my tongue anyway, right? But now I’m sitting here wondering if I should prepare myself for some major painful burning shits later on tonight.

And speaking of going to Hell…Dude. Church is hard.

Oh man, sometimes I make myself laugh, like just now. What a segue! I didn’t even MEAN to do that, it just happened so organically. Lordy.

Yesterday Lance, Noah, and I all got dressed up (which for us means we got out of our respective pajamas and work-out clothes) and went downtown to visit this church. It was the second time we visited an Episcopal church since Noah’s been old enough to really look around and try to talk to people. I really like the Episcopal church. I believe in what they stand for, which is really a blog post for another day, so I’ll just leave it at that for now. And they’re the only church that is openly accepting of the GLBT community, and that is very important to me. But the thing with Episcopal church is, they’re quiet. I guess the expectation is that people put their kids in the nursery, but Lance and I really are not ok with that yet. I don’t know those people, and they don’t know Noah. Maybe I’ll do that when he’s older and I can at least explain what’s going on: that we’re going to worship Jesus (yes, that one! The one that loves you!) in a place that kids are not welcome.

I’ll pause for the irony to sink in.

But for now, we just keep him with us. For those of you who have never been to a liturgical service before, let me paint a picture of what this is like for you. While I balance a squirmy baby on my hip, I have a hymnal in one hand and the program in the other. The program tells you what hymn, Bible passage, or prayer is going to be next. I find this difficult because the whole time I’m singing one hymn and trying to keep Noah from destroying the pages, I’m thinking if I don’t look back at the program to see what’s next, I’m going to be behind by like half a recitation and I’m going to look like a TOOL. So I’m like passing the baby to Lance, who has to pass him back, and I put him on the floor, and I’m turning to what I THINK is the right page in the prayer book only to realize what we’re reading now is in a different book altogether, and by that time I look back down at the floor and Noah is missing.

SHIT.

Where is he? I put down the 15 books that I’ve been balancing under my nose and find him crawling up the aisle toward the alter, so I reach down and scoop him up and head back to our pew and stand, but everyone else is sitting. So we sit, and Lance and I are sitting there like dipwads for like 30 seconds before we realize that everyone is actually KNEELING now, and that’s what it’s like until the preaching portion, when we have like 20 minutes of trying to keep Noah from crumpling paper, hollering, and throwing pencils at the backs of peoples’ heads. Then it’s sitting/reciting/singing/kneeling time all over again.

Just you know, for example.

The worst part is, you go to church to worship God. And amongst all of that, it occurs to me that very little actual WORSHIP is going on here for me. It begs the question, why am I even doing this?

So at the very quiet liturgical service yesterday, Noah wasn’t crying or fussing, just kind of talking. The thing is, all the grown-ups were talking too; he just doesn’t know when to say “And also with you” or “It is right to give Him thanks and praise” yet. So when the priest says “Let’s all be painfully, inhumanly silent for an unnecessarily long time” Noah is all like “DAA! DAAAA?” And it’s in a cathedral, so the sound of his little voice is like bouncing off the ceiling and all around the room. Which he isn’t used to, and which is very cool. So he does it again, only louder this time. It didn’t make me feel self-conscious at first, because there was a woman behind us with a kid who was just learning to talk, and had no concept of “whispering,” which is what she kept whispering for him to do. She’d be like “Whisper, baby, ok? This is a whispering place.” And he’d be all, “WHY MOM?” (And the echo follows: WHY! WHY! WHY!)

Yeah, they left after like 10 minutes. So then Noah was, I swear, the only child left in the whole building.

I read this quote one time that most young adults dislike children because they are, get this: selfish.

I’ll pause again, for the irony to sink in.

When I read that I about pissed myself laughing. What a bunch of bitches we are, right? And I was just thinking, while I was in church, how patient my little Bubbs was being. Just talking, looking around, not putting up a fuss or anything. I mean at what point did our society expect children to be quiet and still for something long and boring like church? Do you remember how boring church used to be when you were a kid, Reader? Do you remember how boring it still sometimes is?

Well, right before the Eucharist, during another wonderful opportunity of silence, Noah lets out an awesomely awesome raspberry, and this woman a few pews in front of us turns around and GLARES at us. Like, full-on lip curl and everything. Like, HOW DARE YOU interrupt the reverent reflection of my oh-so-sensitive freakin’ heart in this house of worship.

Again, I’ll pause. You know the drill.

I was so shocked I just smiled at her, and she turned back around. I gave the back of her head a barfing face (which I for some reason thought would make me feel better, but which did not) and then nudged Lance, and we left.

How much does this suck, Reader? I felt unwelcome at church because of my baby. And clearly, the mama behind us with the toddler felt the same. But just letting Noah make noise and crawl around is disruptive and, as some clearly think, disrespectful. So what’s the solution? Throw your kids in a germ-infested nursery with a bunch of other kids and adults that don’t know you from the man in the moon and only care about your kid insomuch as they feel it is their Christian duty to watch after him while you abandon him, confused and probably crying, so you can sit for an hour in relative silence? Or just don’t come until your kid is old enough to appreciate the sermon and the liturgy and not make wet fart sounds during communion? Both seem unfair to Noah and to us.

It makes me wonder what the New-Testament church looked like. I don’t recall any of Paul’s letters addressing the ever-so-offensive issue of letting children be children while his parents worship the Lord. It’s us who have evolved the Church into what it is today, right? Don’t you read about Jesus’ sermons and think maybe it wasn’t so quiet? Weren’t there crowds? Probably babies and definitely kids? Possibly even a flock or two of goats? I’m just thinking the noise level had to be pretty obnoxious, and I can’t see Jesus turning around and giving any mothers a nasty look, like, Can’t you keep that brat quiet!? I’m TRYING to tell the WORLD about being at PEACE with one another. SHEEEZ!

I mean is it just me? Or is it at all strange to you, too, that we have this man-made ritual that we call church, where we come for an hour or so on Sunday morning, sing a few songs, read a few passages, take communion, and listen to someone teach, but we consider children being themselves, just the way God made them: inquisitive, talkative, impatient… some kind of rude impertinence? Didn’t Jesus say the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to children and people who are like children?

But grown-ups are all like, stop acting the way God created you to act; you’re messing up my ability to worship God.

I would pause for the irony to sink in y’all, but I’m done here.

Some serious issues are going on in the news lately, and if you know me at all you probs know I try my best to stay away from the news. Because I can’t handle the heartbreak. One I just tweeted about the other day, and every time I think about it my eyes well up with tears, so then I have to quickly watch an episode of Frasier.

I was challenged today by the Friendly Atheist, whose blog I read pretty religiously (ha! Get it?). According to the article I read, “In Hawaii, the state legislature had approved same-sex civil unions back in April. Not marriage. Just equal rights. Yesterday, Republican Governor Linda Lingle vetoed that bill.”

Well. I truly am LIVID about these kinds of human rights violations all the time, but I don’t ever do anything about it. I kind of just don’t know what to do besides exercise my right to vote for public officials who are going to do something about it for me while I sit on my ass and complain.

Reading this Atheist blog has been enlightening, to say the least. The things Christians do that other people find appalling… well, without going into it, since this is not a blog post about all the crazy shit we say and do, I’ll just say that being forced to look at myself through Atheist/Agnostic eyes makes me feel sick. Yikes. We’re supposed to be the image of Christ: loving, forgiving, healing the sick, compassionate, just. We’re more like the image of the religious leaders Christ was so angry with, y’all. And non-believers notice.

Anyway, I was cut to the quick today when I read this on the Friendly Atheist’s blog:

“I want to see any Christian who finds this despicable to say so. Blog about it. Tell your Facebook friends. Tell your church members. Call out anyone who disagrees. If you don’t, you’re part of the problem. Don’t tell me you love gay people and think this was the wrong decision… and then sit back and say/do nothing in response. I don’t care for your apologies if you’re not backing it up with action.”

Dang.

So here’s my two cents (if it’s even worth that much): I find this despicable. I’m blogging. I’m telling my friends. Gay people, I love you. I’m for you, and I’m for your rights. And since you came to my blog, here’s what else I think: God is for you too.

But first, a word about the things in my life that, for reasons entirely out of my control, often get neglected.

1. My hygiene. Oh, how I miss taking long, hot showers. And shaving my legs.

2. My nails. About all I can say about my chipped, various lengths, cracked toe and fingernails is…. YUCK.

3. My hubby. I love you, baby. I’ll get my calendar and you get yours and let’s pencil each other in for some nasty sex.

4. My blog. Hi, Reader! Are you still there? I miss you. But alas, gone are the days when I could plop Noah on his play mat and have a good half hour of free time while he stared at his chubby face in the mirror. Also gone are the days when I still had any brain cells left in my head after putting him down for a nap. Now I just sit on the couch and stare blankly at the opposite wall until he wakes up. But know that while I’m doing that, you’re on my mind, World Wide Web. Suddenly my brain flickers into the almost “on” position, long enough to flash “I should bl… wait, huh?” across my conscious before turning itself off again.

So there you have it, my excuse for cranking out maybe one post per week. It sucks.

Also, it totally doesn’t suck, because here’s what’s been hogging all my brain power:

Worth it!

And speaking of that little man, I started this post with a point in mind, and so help me I’m determined to get to it sometime today. On Sunday, Noah was dedicated at church. We’re protestant, so there’s no sprinkling involved, but we still dressed him up in a collared shirt and dressy pants. And shoes. OMG he wore dress shoes that shine. And then he barfed on himself. And holy crap, we got it on digital film. BRILLIANT!

Look how unsuspecting Lance and I are, just smiling for the camera. FOOLS!

Anyway, we stood up in front of the congregation with him and the pastor prayed over him and he cried a little. I think he’s kinda shy. He kept trying to bury his face in Lance’s shirt. Meanwhile, we the parents were charged to bring him up as best we can to walk with the Lord. And to help us, Noah was given his very own little kid’s picture Bible (which he thinks is very tasty, and which has pictures of angels that look like Johnny Bravo).

Afterward, we had coffee with some dear friends who were my pastors in college. They prayed for us before they left, and reminded us that when we pray, we should pray in faith. Meaning pray believing God will act on our behalf. Meaning don’t pray like I usually pray, asking God for things like there’s absolutely no way He’d ever do what I’m asking Him, not in a million years.

Recently I read a well-known scripture in 1 Corinthians. It’s the famous love passage and at the end, it says “…we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.” As I read what I’ve read and heard a hundred times, something new jumped out at me. I usually fast-forward to the “the best of these is love” part, but I was captured by the “Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly” part. I think it’s always seemed like a suggestion, you know? La la la, have hope, trust in God, if you have time or whatever. But these words have power. Trust STEADILY. Hope UNSWERVINGLY. Can you do that??

Hm.

Here’s my problem: how do you pray in faith, or pray with a steady trust in God, and somehow keep hope alive when He doesn’t answer? Because every time I pray something with as much faith as I can muster, and God’s plans are different than mine, I lose hope. I can know in my head that it means God knows something I don’t, that His thoughts are bigger and higher than my own, etc., but my hope still crumbles.

That said, I started writing prayers down. I’m still working on my experiment where I try praying for others as opposed to myself, and looking back over miraculously answered prayer is pretty amazing. It raises my hope and proves my theory that God doesn’t want us to be islands, but wants us to be in community with one another, praying for each other’s needs and helping one another. Side note: sometimes my experiment is easy and fun. I love sitting down with a cup of coffee and earnestly praying for people. God has actually started giving me dreams about people I haven’t thought about in years, and I pray for them. And sometimes my experiment sucks ass. Sometimes I don’t want to pray for you, Reader. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. Sometimes I am selfish. This is what I have to overcome. I have another theory that the harder it is to make time to sit down and pray for someone else, the more important it must be. End side note.

But I’m still confused about hope. How can you just HOPE? To me it seems more like a feeling. I get how trust and love are commands, but hope? It seems so fickle. The feeling of hopelessness is overwhelming sometimes when the smallest thing goes wrong, or it soars when things go well for me. It’s like trying to keep a candle burning in the wind.

What do you think, Reader? Anyone else out there wrestling with their faith? I’d love to hear from you. Anyone got it all figured out? Hey, I’d love to hear from you too.

Man, I’ve been busy today. Noah was like super fussy and wouldn’t let me put him in the new bouncy seat I spent way too much on yesterday, Lucy barfed on the rug, Noah barfed on the other rug, and I was trying to clean up because we invited our neighbors over for dinner on Thursday and I got to thinking they might not want to see that pink ring in the toilet while they’re here. Add seven or eight dirty diapers to that and basically what I am saying is I’ve pretty much been cleaning up puke and shit all day. It’ll wear you out. And then Lost was on, and then Parenthood was on, and I of course had to continue following the fake stories of the fake people in my life. (Give me a break, ok? When you spend your day scrubbing barf out of rugs and cleaning poop off your kid’s tush, you just want to sit on your ass at the end of it and stuff your face with pie while you watch Desmond kick the crap out of Charles Widmore with an IV pole.) With all that on my proverbial plate, I’m just now getting the chance to sit down to blog but really all I want to do is pass completely out until sometime next week.

Alas, my son still wakes me up for milk 400 times at night.

The reason this post is entitled “A paradigm shift” is because I am having one. Original, I know, but there it is. Actually, I’m having many, but I’ll stick to one for now in order not to scare you, Reader. It started with me picking up a book by Donald Miller last weekend called A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. I started reading it and it’s all about not wasting your life. No pressure. Then on the way to church on Easter I saw a bumper sticker on the car in front of us that said, I kid you not, “Don’t waste your life.”

Sometimes, God, I wish You would just stop with the subtleties. WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY ALREADY!?

If you’re like me, you’d see this and you’d be like “what does that mean though?” I get freaked out by stuff like that. It’s too broad, you know what I mean? Don’t waste your life. Ok… well, I’m fairly good at 5-Card Draw and I’ve read all the Harry Potter books a couple of times… oh! and I make a mean lasagna. So what do I do now? I need like, step-by-step instructions here.

Well, this pretty much never happens, but I think I’ve got the answer. On Easter, we’re at church like all good little Christians do on Easter, and the pastor is kicking ass with the message, and I’m taking notes like crazy, and all of the sudden he said something that I don’t even think he meant to say necessarily; anyway it didn’t have anything to do with his sermon, but it struck me in a funny way so I stopped taking notes and looked up at him with my mouth open for a long time, like everything was in slow motion. He said “Sometimes I get one of your faces in my mind and I can’t shake it all week, and then I’ll see you and I’ll ask, ‘How are you?’ and you’ll say ‘I’m ok,’ and then I’ll just look at you for a minute, and you’ll say ‘Well, actually I’m not ok.’” That’s when it hit me. I always think of closeness with Jesus as like, my being super blessed or having supernatural abilities like invisibility or something. Subconsciously, I guess I’ve thought having a close relationship with God is about ME. But I realized, in that moment, that it’s not about me at all. It’s about everyone else.

Jesus spent His entire ministry trying to get us to understand this one principle, but I’m pretty sure most Christians are like me, always thinking about MY feelings, MY sin, MY pain, MY brokenness. MY financial issues, MY marriage issues, the fact that MY baby won’t sleep at night. It’s opposite of what I should be focused on as a believer. My thoughts should not be on myself, but on my friends, family, the people of Haiti, the homeless, the hurting people all around me.

My thoughts… and my prayers.

My prayers are always for and about my own needs and selfish desires, so I’m starting this experiment where I stop praying for me. Instead I’m picking three to five people every day to focus on when I pray. It’s what Jesus would do, y’all. Did you know when He was in the garden at Gethsemane, mere hours away from what He knew would be His own torture and death, He prayed for us? That’s crazy love. I think this is going to be awesome, because it’s absolutely where God’s thoughts are: with His children. Eventually I hope I’ll have the kind of close relationship with God where He (or She) puts people’s faces on my mind, where He entrusts me to pray for and encourage and find ways to help those around me. I bet He loves me enough to put my face on someone else’s mind, too, and that’s pretty cool. It’s I think what Christianity is supposed to be about.

I think this is really it, y’all; this is really how not to waste your life. It seems almost like an oxymoron: in order not to waste your life, forget about YOUR life. You have to make your life about other people. But it makes sense if you think about all the great people in history; they all somehow impacted those around them. Jesus, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa… others that I’d think about and write if my contacts weren’t so dry my eyes feel like glue.

Coincidentally, I was reading back over my prayer journal from last year, when I first found out I was pregnant. All my entries are so panicked sounding, so stressed out. The tone of the prayers is like I don’t think they’re really going to happen. It’s like PLEASE let us find a house! and I’m so nervous something’s going to be wrong with the baby, please protect the baby! and I don’t know how we’re going to live on only one income, please let us pay off our debt! Where are we going to get money!? I was reading it going, geez, what a putz. Calm down, already. And I was kind of laughing at myself as I realized that every one of my prayers was answered. We have a great house in a great neighborhood that we bought for a great price, most of our debt was paid off when we got our tax refund for being first-time home buyers, and we had a perfect, healthy baby boy.

But then I realized suddenly that I still do that. I still pray like that, like I don’t believe there’s any way at all what I’m asking will be answered. Even though He always always always comes through for me, I still haven’t learned to trust God for good things.

Huh.

It started like this: Noah doesn’t sleep.

Before he was born, I started praying about the sleeping thing. See I had heard this thing about babies: “The thing about babies is, they don’t sleep.” And I was all, “Nuh-uh, my baby is going to sleep because I don’t function when I don’t sleep and I’m going to pray about it.” So I did, and I got other people to pray about it for me; any time anyone asked me what they could pray for about the new baby, I always said “pray that he sleeps good.” And FYI, if you’re one of those people who likes to tell pregnant women “Get all the sleep you can now cause you won’t be sleeping after the baby comes!” PLEASE STOP. If I had had a sleep bank and I could have stored it up and I could just make a withdrawal after he was born, I would have done that. But is that a real thing? Didn’t think so.

Every night as I lay down after Noah’s late-night feeding, I prayed to (read: begged) the Lord to have mercy on me by letting my son sleep. When I eventually lost faith that Noah could sleep through the night, I started asking God for just four hours. After many nights, I lost faith for four hours and started asking God for just three. It wasn’t working, and I felt angry with God. Angry, and confused. It wasn’t even that He was ignoring my prayers; He was seeming to do the OPPOSITE of what I was asking Him – the harder I prayed, the less Noah slept. It was so simple really, and I know so many other mothers who boast that their child started sleeping through the night much earlier than Noah. All I was asking was for Noah to sleep. What was God doing to me?

With each passing night and still no sleep, anger turned to hopelessness. My prayers were shallow, holding less and less faith. “Let him sleep four hours” became “let him sleep um… as long as possible.” Fatigue, anger, and anxiety accompanied me every night, and I felt like I was reaching the end of my rope as Noah woke up more and more frequently. My faith that God cared for me and my tiny needs was dying. I prayed a different way every night, thinking maybe God was waiting for the perfect word order before He would act. None of my words mattered. I felt like God had turned a deaf ear to my pleas. As my faith waned I started feeling guilty for my prayers; after all, there were many people so much less fortunate than me. Who was I to pray for sleep when thousands of people in Haiti were still suffering? And I didn’t have faith or energy to keep praying prayers that were just bouncing off the ceiling.

So I quit praying about it. And the question started echoing around in my head, burning into my skull: “does prayer even matter? Isn’t God just going to do what God’s going to do regardless of what I ask Him?” My faith that God could “move mountains” or even do ANYTHING about Noah was almost dead. In desperation, I tried shifting my focus, and one night I prayed this instead: “When Noah wakes up tonight, help me discern what he needs, and give me strength to deal with it.” I just knew God would like that prayer. He was sure to answer IT.

Now, a good end to this blog post would be for me to tell you all about how fantastic that night was, that I woke up with energy and had the supernatural ability to deal not only every time Noah woke up, but the next morning, too. I’m sorry to disappoint you, Reader. What actually happened is that at 1:30am, half an hour after I’d fed Noah and put him back to bed and maybe 10 minutes after I’d dozed off, he woke up again, and I flipped my shit. I started crying, sat up and punched the pillow. Lance tried to hug me and I slapped him off me. Then I held out my arms and yelled at the room: “HE’S SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO SLEEP FOR SIX HOURS NOW! WHY CAN’T HE SLEEP FOR SIX HOURS?! WHY!”

Oh yeah. I rock as a mom so far. I think later I’ll smoke a nice big cigarette while I watch my baby play with knives.

The psalmist David, in the midst of all his trials, said “I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” I like to think he was like me: reminding his soul what his heart had forgotten. Maybe he, like me, didn’t see the Lord moving the way he wanted. Maybe he, too, was discouraged, losing hope with each new disappointment. But he’s talking to himself, willing himself to be strong, trust in the Lord’s goodness, and wait for God to act.

I hope you aren’t disappointed by this, Reader, but I don’t have the answer yet. I don’t even have a lesson for you to take away from reading this or a great way to wrap it up. I promise to do a follow-up post when I’m the perfect Christian mother with the perfect, sleeping son and a renewed understanding of God’s mysterious ways. The truth is, I’m wrestling in my faith. I’m wondering where God is in this and why He hasn’t acted on my behalf. Something so small, a baby not sleeping at night (which yes, I know, it’s what babies do), is testing me. It’s so much more than Noah not sleeping. It’s about my hope in my First Love. Do I still believe the Lord is good? Do I believe He is kind? Do I believe that he cares about even my smallest needs? This post, y’all, is the essence of my entire blog. After everything I’ve been through on my spiritual journey, I’m still in Kadesh.

I’m trying to do what David said; I’m choosing to look for the Lord’s goodness. I’m trying to be strong, take heart, and wait on the Lord.