Family Tree

Picture it - the Mountains of east Tennessee, 1980. 1955. 1936. 1918.  A baby girl is born - shortly there after, her mother dies.  Her father, not knowing how to care for a child, gives his daughter to relatives to raise. 

Some years later, she meets a handsome young man and they marry.  They are blessed with two daughters, but World War II breaks up their family and sends him to Africa.  While serving there, he catches malaria and is shipped back to the States, but not home.  She travels across the country to Washington state to see her love.

Hard to understand I'm sure, but the events of my family tree all those years ago, helped shape me into the woman I am today.  I'm the great granddaughter of an alcoholic and an abandoned orphan. 

When put in that light, I seem really normal don't I?

Let me just get out there that I'm not judging or blaming anyone.  It is, however, helpful for me to be able to dig back and see why my family is the way it is.  (The other side really isn't all that more "normal" either.)  My great-grandmother never had an example how to be a parent.

As a result my grandmother's example was set through trial and error.  Somewhere along the way we began to learn that messing up wasn't an option.  Perfection was demanded.  And because we couldn't be perfect, we were bad. wrong. worthless.  garbage.

What does that have to do with @stickyJesus - file 9: humility?

We thought humility meant putting ourselves down even more.  We didn't understand that "Humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less. – C.S. Lewis" as Michelle points out on today's read along post.


Because we didn't understand that, as we tried to build our self esteem, we did that wrong too.

How do you undo 4 generations worth of faulty thinking?  One baby step at a time.  The number of followers that you see over there >>> has nothing to do with my worth as a person, or even my ability as a writer.  I know I've lost followers here and there, but I can't allow myself to be hurt by it.  Its (probably) not a personal reflection of me.

As I've said every week and will most likely continue saying until the end of the read along, these aren't just principles that can be applied to the Land of Shiny Things (aka the Internet).  Its also something I desperately need to work on in my marriage and my interaction with those around me.

Most of you know that my husband and I are currently remodeling our house.  I've been very unhappy with the slow progression of the work.  Now that its mostly done, I'm unhappy with the result.  All this time (and money) spent for that? 

My husband is getting frustrated with me because he thinks that I'm impossible to please.  What he doesn't understand, is that perfectionism is a tough battle to fight.  I talked a little about it yesterday, but this whole train of thought was prompted by reading this blog. Which I found because I went to Stuff Christians Like for a laugh.  Because I was frustrated and upset because the remodel job isn't going as I'd like.

Isn't God good?  Even when we aren't asking Him for guidance He's still there pushing us in the direction we need to go.

My first thoughts and frustrations about the house not turning out the way I wanted?  I'll never have anything nice.  Throw all the money in the world at it, and I'll still just be that poor little girl who can't afford what she wants.  I don't deserve anything nice.

So while my hubby thought I was upset at the french fry colored piece of wood in the land of black walnut, it really went much deeper than that.

Then this morning, God led me down another path.  Same topic, different application.  The radio station I listen too was promoting the Hawk Nelson CD Crazy Love and were asking of instances where their listeners demonstrated love that didn't make sense in their lives.  The girl who called in told a story of heart ache, and how she was still working to bless the person who hurt her.

Logging online afterward, God hit me with this blog.  Part of our crazy messed up family tree is taking offense to things that no offense was meant by.  I try to make a game out of it now, to show myself how ridiculous it is.  One example of such behavior is getting served a diet coke (I had ordered regular) and assuming it was because the server thought I was fat and subconsciously wanted to help me out.

If I get that offended by a mistake, think about how hurt I get when someone intentionally harms me.  I have trouble letting go, forgiving.  "Remember that you are dead to these things."  Christ has given me a new life, washed clean of sin.  How can I stay clean if I keep picking up and clutching tightly the sins others have committed against me?

So that person I thought liked me but was really just faking it for their own motives?  Humility is not agreeing with them - that they were right to say bad things about me.  Humility is not fighting back with all my might. 

Humility is knowing they were wrong yet continuing to minister to them with the love of Jesus.  They don't deserve to be treated with that kind of mercy and grace, but then again neither did I.  I'm sure glad God didn't let that stop Him.

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Fatigue and Wellness

For those of you who were around for my anemia issue, you'll remember that my very first directive was rest.  Rest, rest, and more rest.  Don't do anything that makes you tired.  I even got a free pass from doing dishes from my hematologist (but since I'm mostly sure my doc was kidding, I didn't cash it in.)

Giving your body a break is a necessary part of working out.  Soreness is a result (as best I understand it) of us making little tears in our muscles, those tears are necessary to build strength but so is the rest that allows them to rebuild - stronger than ever before.

Our bodies don't just require rest from workouts though, taking a break from your occupation to recoup is necessary too.  Whether your job is full of mental stress (My Darling Love aka the Mutant) or is physically taxing (like my dad), we need to take a break.

After all, the ten commandments weren't just a result of a demanding God who requires us to follow His orders because He says so.  He loves us and His directives are to keep us from harm.

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it. Genesis 20:8-11 (RSV)

So too we need to take a break from the constant pinging we receive from the Land of Shiny things.  This week for our @stickyJesus read along, we're discussing file 08 - Warning: Danger Zones
While several portions of the chapter really jumped out at me, the one most convicting was "go digitally dark".  Now before you get scared that I'm going to pull the plug on my blog (yall would cry wouldn't you?  no?  well...um...cough...um...I'm sure someone would miss me.) that's not what this section is talking about.

The book's authors Tami Heim and Toni Birdsong are just suggestion that, like our sabbath day of rest from work and chores, we also take a day of rest from logging on.  Take a little extra time to nurture our "real life" relationships, but mostly just devote the day to worshiping our Lord and listen for His voice.

I've decided to take them up on their challenge.  Starting this week, no logging on Sundays.  If I do a workout (which I'm kicking back and forth the idea in my head of making Sunday a day of rest from that too), I'll just log it on Monday morning.

Okay now that I type it out, I'm remembering the Shrinking Jeans Olympics.  If I participate in the 10K I have to have my time submitted by midnight Sunday night.  Is it cheating to ask Jay to log it for me? Or maybe that needs to go too. 

Please don't misunderstand this for legalism.  That's something I struggle with.  I'd be the world's best Pharisee, I really would, but that's not God wants for me (or you for that matter).  I just want to open myself up to hear from Him.  I want to build up my spiritual armour.

In case you missed it, this life is hard.  There are those "danger zones" on every corner - be it cyber or otherwise.

I've been very convicted by a couple books here lately.  One I mentioned on Tuesday -
From Blushing Bride to Wedded Wife.  The other is my "February" project - The Love Dare. 

Day one the Dare says "The first part of this dare is fairly simple...For the next day resolve to...say nothing negative to your spouse at all." (pg 4)  Do you know how hard that is for me?  I'm young and in love with my husband and yet I can't go one day without something negative to him?  I actually had to start this challenge yesterday, instead of on the 1st as I'd originally planned because I had already messed up by the time I read the challenge.

Likewise Marla's Blushing Bride challenges wives who make jokes at the expense of their husbands.  *Gulp*

If you've followed me on twitter at all, I'm sure you've seen me post something not-so-lovely about my husband.  Would my cyber friends know what a good marriage we have just by what I've posted?  I think that's one of the "danger zones" of outlets like Twitter.  Its easy to tweet 140 characters of griping about my husband, but how often do I boast about what a great provider he is?

I've said it every week of this read along and it applies this week as well - these principles aren't just limited to cyber interaction.  I need to be in constant prayer taking every thought captive.

My prayer is that you do the same and we can encourage one another along the way.

Disclosure: Amazon Affiliate links included in this post. If you click through to Amazon from Smart + Strong = Sexy, any purchase you make supports this site.

@stickyJesus Read Along!

I wasn't the most faithful with my blogging during Marla's Radical read along, so I'm excited to have a shot at redemption with Michelle's weekly homework of @stickyJesus.

There were plenty of statistics in "File 01: You were born for a such a time as this" aka chapter one.  But one of them caught my eye more than the rest, and that's because it hit close to home.  More accurately, its the reason for my home as I know it.

One out of every eight couples married in 2008 in the U.S. met via social networking.

Wanna take a guess as to when Jay and I got married? 
2008

Wanna know where we met?
Myspace (back when it was still cool)

I honestly thought we were a rarity.  Sure you see the eHarmony commercials where their couples met online, but you don't actually believe it happens to real people.  Especially in a land full of "hey u r hot wanna chat?"  Marriages don't come from that.

Ah...but they do. 

While on our first anniversary vacation, Jay and I stayed at a bed and breakfast in Napa.  We all had individual tables, but each of the 5 couples chatted to everyone else while enjoying our first meal of the day.  A few of the other couples there also met online.

Not sure why I just assumed it was a fluke. 

Facebook.  Twitter.  Blogger.  Message boards.

There all filled with real people.  Those real people  have real feelings.  Real needs.

Why are we tempted to be someone other than who we truly are when interacting with others?  In the bloggy land there seems to be a lot of putting your best face forward going on.  Maybe not yours or mine, but I wonder just how real some of the more popular bloggers can be.

Then again maybe I should remove the log out of my eye before challenging the speck in someone else's. After all my blog title?  Just who I want to be.  While I'm transparent in my posts that I'm certainly not the most confident person in the world, I didn't want to name it Awkward + Uncertain = ME.

In order to reach out to those people with real needs, we must be transparent. 

While a perfectionist, I am not perfect.

I'm a sinner.

I need the grace of Jesus on a daily, hourly basis.

We're promised that in our weakness, He is made strong.

If that's the case then He's gonna really be able to work through me.  And I honestly pray that's the case.