Toilet Training

Dear Children,

You may wonder when you're older what it was like for me to earn my Ph.D and quit working to be a stay-at-home-mom in the same year. Well, it was hard. In my social circle, it wasn't done. In the larger society, people were writing articles about how women who received advanced degrees and did not remain in their profession were failing women at large. Even without that, it was hard simply because the life transition was so enormous.

So I want to tell you about an experience I had when I was younger which helped me make sense of this sudden change.

My first summer in college, I was in a training program that included  a communal bathroom  for 16 girls. We were put in teams of four. On the morning of my team's turn to clean the bathrooms, I found myself scrubbing toilets while my teammates were still sleeping. I was a very bitter camper.

I huffed my way through the toilets, the shower stalls, and the floor. Then I started on a long row of sinks. Somewhere between the first sink and the last sink, I realized that while everyone else was asleep, God was watching, that these were God's sinks, and that He was pleased. No one else had to know. I didn't need to snark at my teammates.  The bathrooms were cleaner, and this was something I could do for God's glory.

In the years since then, when I've found myself doing stuff I don't like or value (or others don't value), I've been able to turn back to that bathroom experience. It reminds me that seen or unseen, valued or unvalued, my doings can be a "spiritual act of worship" and God sees.

So those years when you were small and needed a lot of "unseen" care, I remembered that God saw and his value of what I was doing with my life meant more than anything, certainly more than faceless article writers. (This also meant I didn't have to welcome your dad home with a boring recounting of all the wonderful mom-things I'd done that day.)

Anyways, as you grow up and face the twists and turns of your own life, remember that God sees and cherishes you, and that you don't need to live for the pleasure of anyone else but Him.

And about you and me: it was hard; you were worth it.

Love to you both,
Mom

Invitation to beauty

-Sky Rift by Nicholas A. Tonelli

Over the past week, I've been buffeted by this idea that NOT complaining is a part of gospel living. We've been trained to think that sharing the gospel is about telling people about creation, the fall, and redemption through Jesus.

But I was reading a book with some friends, and the author pointed out that after the Apostle Paul, writer of many New Testament books while sitting in a drafty prison, says, "Do everything without complaining or arguing," [WHAT!!] Paul explains the reason this way:

 "so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life. (From Paul's letter to his friends in Philippi, chpt 2)"

First of all, I get that "good" people, "nice" people should not complain or argue. I just don't always want to be good or nice. But Paul claims that this not complaining, not arguing does two things: 1) It shapes who we become. 2) It attracts people to the word of life.

Just as pianists practice scales in becoming pianists, children of God who are blameless and pure, or innocent as one translation puts it, train for it by practicing not complaining or arguing. When we choose this path, we are changed.

This change is beautiful. Think about the night sky with the stars twinkling out of the darkness. On a warm summer night, it's a wonder to behold. As the practice of not complaining or arguing takes hold, our lives light up with beauty like the night sky, and this is an offering of the word of life.

A friend recently blogged this : "There’s a mother of two I’ve gotten to know, and for a long time I felt like something was weird about her until I realized that I’ve never heard her complain. About her kids. About anything." You don't have to wear a sign that says, "I've given up complaining." People will notice because it is attractive, because it is light in a world of darkness, because it is life in the midst of death.

But let's say you don't care. You don't care about other people, you don't care to become an innocent child of God. Fine. How about this: Complaining and arguing are making you miserable.  Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, a therapist lays out the 14 habits of highly miserable people.  Stuff like, "Be critical. Make sure to have an endless list of dislikes and voice them often, whether or not your opinion is solicited." or "Pick fights. This is an excellent way of ruining a relationship with a romantic partner. Once in a while, unpredictably, pick a fight or have a crying spell over something trivial and make unwarranted accusations. The interaction should last for at least 15 minutes and ideally occur in public."

The church women's study this semester is reading through Calm my Anxious Heart by Linda Dillow. The first couple chapters go back to Paul's letter to his friends in Philippi. From prison, he tells them that he's learned the secret of being content in any and every situation. Who doesn't want that? I think about my life; I think about the lives of my friends; I want peace, contentment for all of us. And I think many of us, if we were promised eternal peace and contentment at the top of a mountain, we would climb and drag ourselves up the mountain, we would walk over broken glass, we would give up our last cup of water.

After Paul says that he's learned contentment whether hungry or full, rich or poor, then he says, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." The miracle that Jesus did for Paul, that He can do for us, is that He can train us in the practice of not complaining or arguing. It will take a miracle. Thankfully, Jesus is in the miracle business. Let us join Him in His work.