Asleep in the Storm

I love face book. Except for when I hate it. And I read a lot of blogs. And I find that the ones I like the most are honest portrayals of life. Like Carrie’s pictures after she runs. That’s real. Like Sheila’s guest post of her 10K where she passed the three women in tutu’s to finish in the bottom 25 feeling like she was going to throw up the whole time. That’s real.

I’m competitive. But in an odd way. The more blogs and face book posts about how great everyone’s life is, the more I want to tell you how awful mine is. Your kids rocked their parent teacher conferences? Cool. If I actually went to parent teacher conferences…(okay, I go, but only because they offer dinner). But after I talk to the friends from church (who are also teachers), the volleyball coach, his wife, Nate’s old teachers, and parents of friends who are there for conferences, I have spent an hour and half at the high school and still haven’t talked to Whitney’s teachers. (And have probably had two pieces of cake, but have gotten to catch up with Jolene and Meredith). I would hear a pretty even split of “she’s a great kid, hard worker, love having her in class” with “she has so much potential, if she would just apply herself. She’s too social. I worry about some of the friends she hangs around with” and so on. My two kids are both gifted. Brilliant minds. But they are the brilliance that is used for evil, not for good. Thought processes like this “MOM!!! This 100 questions in geometry is only worth 10 points. Why would I do 100 questions for 10 points? One extra credit question on the test is worth 10 points. Or a ream of copy paper or paper towels is extra credit. Do they think I’m stupid?” When Nate was in the 8th grade he volunteered to clean up after lunch. Because the lunch ladies gave him leftovers and he had gym right after lunch so he missed calisthenics and got to go out right at time for the fun stuff. My gifted, athletic children that carry 2.8 GPA’s (and get D’s in P.E.) but don’t worry about college scholarships because they know they will score well on the ACT’s and they’ll still get scholarship money.

The better your kids are at something, the more I will tell you what mine do wrong. And my kids made JV and Varsity teams in their sports at school early. Were coach (and other player) favorites, and yet, I can still point out where they are lame. And don’t even tell me how awesome you are, I’ll begin to tell you what I struggle with. If you were a bad girl, I’ll want to one up you on how bad I was back in the day. Or just last week. Go ahead, tell me how wonderful your family is and I’ll tell you how dysfunctional mine is. I could say it’s because I want to be real and transparent, but in actuality I can’t compete with how great you are, so I won’t. (But I really truly am happy for your great life and your perfect children and wonderful husband. I really am happy for you).

Truth is I have a good life. We are healthy. We are employed. We have a roof over our heads. I’ve been praying for a friend whose husband has esophageal cancer which spread to his stomach and prognosis is not good. They are young. Young children. I have a co-worker whose son lives in Joplin. They are fine, but they know so many that died and lost everything in the tornado. Steve is going with work or church, not sure which group yet, to help with clean up. I have a friend who is living totally dependent on God for everything. E-V-E-R-Y-THING! Day to day. God is providing, but man what a way to live and what a faith. I have a friend with severe marriage problems, and no desire to fix them. I have a friend with an autistic child. These are problems with my friends that I know about. I can’t imagine the pain some are living with that they have no one to talk to about.
God has been so good to us. Sometimes in the middle of the storm it doesn’t seem that way. But when it all settles and you look around and everything is still standing, you get to think we are way stronger than we thought. At our house, storms water the grass and the orchard and the trail and everything is prettier and fresher and greener after the storm. The storm is the time Steve goes up on the roof and cleans out the gutters. The storm is the time we find out where leaks are that we need to repair. The storm is where we find out how deep our roots go. I found out mine go deep and they are bound to the right stuff and they hold under pressure. Jesus is in the storm with us. (I think sometimes he sleeps through mine, but he is there).

Sure we mess up. We fail. Each other and God. But we weather our storms. We help others through their storms. We celebrate victories. And we get stronger.

Thanks for stopping by today, and know that I prayed for everyone who reads this today. Whatever your storm, or if you are in a season of peace, Praise God for that, I prayed for you.