Stumbling Blocks

A lot of my posts lately have been light and fluffy.  Their purpose is to encourage and warm the heart.  They have their place.  I’ll just preface by saying that this post is not one of those.  Sometimes as Christians we need to encourage and lift up and sometimes we need to speak the truth even if it’s hard to say or doesn’t sound pretty.

I had a conversation recently with my Dad that I’m going to share.  I’m fairly sure he won’t mind.  As a child my father worked in a position where he often had public speaking engagements and stories about my sister and I were numerous (and usually slightly embellished).  Likewise my Dad published a book that has content about me.  So he owes me one.  He reads my blog so he will read this ; )  Love you Dad!

Anyway, my Dad and I were talking deep spiritual stuff.  We mostly agree when it comes to our faith, but occasionally we don’t and on this particular topic we have not always seen eye to eye.  The topic was about hell.  Essentially my father struggles with the idea that if you don’t prescribe to the belief that Jesus died for your sins you will go to hell.  After much discussion he said to me, “So you’re basically saying that if you’re gay, or Buddhist, for example, you deserve to go to hell?”  You know what?  That is a really good and really tough question.  I recently heard a response to the likes of this question that I thought was a good one.  The answer I heard and one that I personally intend to give should this kind of question be asked of me again is this:  It’s not that someone who is gay deserves to go to hell, or someone who is Buddhist.  The fact is, we ALL deserve to go to hell.  I do and you do.  We’ve all fallen short of perfection.  Generally speaking in secular American society, while most people believe in a god and an existence of heaven and hell; the over arching belief is that if you lead a good life you go to heaven; a bad life you go to hell.  The Christian however believes that no one can measure up to the perfection of God.  No line in the sand can be drawn between ‘good’ and ‘evil’.  The Christian believes that we all fall into the category deserving hell, but we believe the good news that God paved a way for us through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. 

When I accepted that, I didn’t walk into my relationship with God feeling like everything that He says is wrong, really is.  But I surrendered my life to Him and over time He showed me something important.  He showed me that my feelings towards something He says don’t matter.  Something might seem right to me, it might feel right to me, but if He says it’s wrong, then it is.  To this day I don’t look at all sin and have a feeling of detest towards it in my natural sense.  Some sins I do, but others I just don’t.  But that doesn’t matter.  I don’t trust in my feelings to determine right from wrong.  I believe that my mind is infinitely smaller and less capable of understanding anything compared to the creator of the whole universe.   That said, only God gets to determine right from wrong.  We do not.  We are not called to pick apart others or point or shake a finger at them.  We are called to share God’s love and to share the truth that we have all fallen short and point the way towards the cross.

So for anyone reading this who believes in God, but not in anything else I just wrote, consider this:  Is it possible that the way you feel about God and the truths you have established for yourself might be wrong?  Is it plausible that God is bigger than who you’ve created him to be?  Maybe there is a supreme authority that trumps your beliefs?  Maybe your feelings don’t matter? 

For me the bible is my authority.  It is accurate.  It is inspired by God.  The seeming contradictions do not actually contradict each other.  It answers big life questions.  It is worth reading, studying, learning, knowing, and following, even the parts that don’t make you ‘feel’ warm and fuzzy.  

"For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength."   - 1 Corinthians 1:25 NIV84

Not the exact verse I used, but this cartoon sums up a lot of what I was saying:

www.joyfultunes.com

Blue Eyes and Double-Jointed Thumbs

I’ve always sort of secretly lamented the fact that my children don’t really look like me.  I think this might be a similar experience among other interracial families where two or more races are blended together to make little people who while (according to me) possessing beautiful features, don’t really resemble either of their parents.   My kids really do look like each other, but I’ve never really been able to identify anything in them that I know for certain comes definitively from me. 

Honestly it wasn’t really that big of a deal.  But I’ve always sort of looked longingly at families where the child clearly just takes after one of their parents.  Like their genes were just stamped and replicated so obviously, there would be no question that the kids belonged there.  My nephew is an example of this.  He is like a carbon copy of my sister.  He looks exactly the way I picture my children looking before I met and married someone with dark brown skin. 

My boys were both born, beautiful brown eyes, olive skin, and don’t look like me at all.  I expected the same from my daughter before she made her appearance and for the most part I was right.  Except for two very unlikely, slightly strange features that she possesses that always make me smile, because they always remind me without a shadow of a doubt that she got them from me!  The first are her eyes.  They are blue.  Really what are the chances of that?  I’ve seen it before in pictures, but honestly if you know anything about how genetics work with determining eye color, she is a bit of an anomaly.  My husband has absolutely no history of anyone in his lineage with eyes any other color than brown.  So technically T. should have had no chance of ending up with blue eyes.  Yet I assure you she definitely has them!

The second is very quirky.  As a kid I used to love to freak out all my friends by popping my crazy double- jointed thumbs in an out of sockets.  It was my cool/weird super human trick.  Well let me just tell you the big smile I got on my face when I held my little T.’s newborn hand in mine, counted and wiggled all her fingers, and joyfully discovered her flexible double jointed thumbs!  Almost two years later it still makes me smile every time I see her popping that thumb in and out of it’s socket (she’s unaware that this is weird yet).

So seriously what is even the point of me sharing this with anyone?  Honestly I don’t really know.   They’re not really a big deal in comparison to the gift of life God has given me in my children or on a much greater scale, the gift of life He has given me through his Son Jesus.  In metaphoric terms, the gift of Christ is like a bowl of my favorite ice cream every day, and my daughter’s eye color and thumb tricks are like tiny sprinkles.  But I’m still thankful for them.  I think He gave me those sprinkles because He knew they would mean something to me and bring me joy.  He’s a generous and loving Creator.  

So God, I know you can read this, and I just want to thank you.  You deserve thanks for so much more, but for just this one second I want to thank you for blue eyes and double-jointed thumbs and for the bond of a mother and daughter.  I’m really grateful for that.  You’re the best!

Our Media Fast is Over...sort of

Well we just completed 10 days without most media.  I admittedly had to log on to do my job that can only be done online as well as to check email.  I also made an exception to watch my husband sing in the presidential inauguration yesterday.  I felt that to be acceptable. : )

What surprised me the most about being somewhat off the grid was that I didn’t miss it as much as I thought I might.  I am really somewhat of an internet junkie.  I would even liken it to an addiction.  I didn’t want to spend even one day not being able to log on to Facebook or check into one of my online mom’s groups, so ten days felt impossible.  Because I was so resistant to doing it I knew I had to. 

I determined to draw closer to God, my husband, and my children.  I am really thankful that is exactly what happened.  It was the time I needed to face the reality of my media over usage and contemplate how I can reintroduce it with better parameters and moderation. 

I don’t want to let me life go by with a screen in front of my face twenty four seven.  There are too many in person conversations to have with my husband, friends and family; beautiful, silly, laughing children to watch grow up; and a world of hurting people that need love and to be told God loves them too.  

Beginning our Media Fast

Well folks, I've wrangled my dear husband into a total fast of media with me for the next ten days, possibly more.  I decided this would be a good idea for me.  Why?  Well quite frankly I am online or watching television WAY too much.  I feel like either one of us always has some sort of screen in front of our face.  The thought of giving that up for 10 days or more feels odd and uncomfortable.  But it's necessary.  I'm hoping during this time we will draw closer to each other and God.  I will report back when we've completed our fast.  Here we go!

J. turns 7!

I haven't posted in a while and I feel like I owe my J. a birthday shout out so I'll just share a little bit.  Every January 10th I get more sentimental than any other day because it was the day I became a mom for the first time.  I'll never forget the moment at 7:25 pm when with one final push he came into the world.  I'll never forget pulling him up onto me and looking down into his sweet little face.  He was so warm and slippery and perfect.  My whole entire life changed at that moment, yet I wasn't really even aware of it.  Ricardo and I often look at newborn pictures of our kids and comment how all their unique personalities are just stored up inside their tiny little bodies and yet if you look in their eyes you can see a glimmer of what they will become.

It's been a privilege, a challenge, a blessing, and so much more to be a mother these last seven years.  I know I've only scratched the surface of what motherhood will entail for me.  But I'm so very thankful that I've had the chance to love and be loved by such a sweet little boy and his brother and sister.  It's truly one of God's greatest gifts.

My little guy at a few days old.