Thoughts about self-acceptance

The theme of the week seems to be, for me, radical self-acceptance. The God who named Himself “I am” seems to be quite alright with us being who we are as well. This naturally comes as quite a shock to me. I grew up hearing messaging from everywhere that we should never be okay with ourselves as we are now, that we should always be striving to be better.

When I met God, I brought all the garbage I had accumulated with me. One particularly heavy bag I carried was the idea that the whole purpose of life was to be consistently “leveling up”, always “one percent better”, always seeking to improve.

Like the perfect Father He is, when He ran out to meet me He took that bag (along with the all the others) and set them aside to embrace me. I felt the weight lift immediately, and that feeling of total freedom intoxicated me. I have never forgotten that first breath of new life. But oh how quickly I picked my garbage back up and sought to follow after Him with all of it still clinging to me like the Junk Lady from The Labyrinth.

I have used Bible passages to justify this. I have run myself into the ground over and over again. I have hurt people in ways I could never have imagined over this lie, this obsession with becoming someone worthy of love. I was convinced before I met God that I would be worthy of love if I could be good enough; I was convinced after meeting Him that on my own I never would be good enough; and today I am beginning to understand that He never wanted me to be good enough, with or without Him. He just wants me — as I am.

Jesus didn’t come to begin a process of sanctification that would, in the end, make me worthy. In His leaving the Throne and taking on flesh He pronounced me worthy. The prodigal son wasn’t accepted back in to the family as a servant. There is no earning love with God. As it says in The Discipline of Grace, “God never intended that we relate to Him directly” (p 23). I read this years ago and the understanding has only deepened with time. Jesus isn’t a hall pass or permission slip; He isn’t my get out of jail free card; He isn’t waiting in the wings for me to need His forgiveness again and again. He settled it all on the cross. It is finished.

So where does that leave my obsession with “one percent better”? I still have a terrible drive; I am motivated to learn; I am restless with imperfection. My mind churns problems into solutions seemingly without any effort of will; I am most excited about life with I have a reasonably-sized problem to tackle. Finally, after many years and missteps and mistakes and failures, I am learning to accept that this love of problem-solving can be a gift . . . as long as I remember that people are not problems.

I am not a problem to be solved. I am a person that God (God! Holy, Perfect, Lovely God!!) loved enough to sacrifice His Son and His life for, who loves me enough to abide with me and lead me through life like a good shepherd.

And this isn’t only true when I am behaving well or navel-gazing, writing these heady thoughts down. No; it was true when I was barking orders last night; it was true when I responded with impatience; it was true when I judged someone much more harshly than I would like to be judged; it was true when I was selfish. And it will be true again when I inevitably mess up. I can only repent because I do not have to fear what will happen to me when I own up.

I am learning to trust the grace that I love. Maybe this isn’t so much about self-acceptance as it is trusting God . . . but it is He who made me. I cannot reasonably trust Him while holding myself in contempt. He doesn’t hold Himself back from me. And he doesn’t hold Himself back from you.

I don’t know who these are for. Hopefully someone other than me. Thank you for reading. God loves you.

Toothless the Cat

Have I ever told you about Toothless the cat?

We found Toothless stuck in the engine of a neighbor’s truck about three years ago during our nightly walk. We heard the tiny mews of a kitten’s distress call, and we raced back home to put up the dog and grab a cat carrier. Love questioned the carrier: “Why the carrier? Are we keeping it?” Yes. Why not?

Love got this scared and tiny kitten out of the truck with some difficulty, and we took it home — fur as black as the October night, kitten-blue eyes as wide as the full moon.

The children woke to this sweet kitten quarantined in our bathroom, and we all felt that new-in-love feeling right away. We made the vet appointments and confirmed this jet-black kitten was a girl, and a name was decided rather quickly: Toothless, from one of our favorite movies How to Train Your Dragon.

Toothless the cat stole our hearts immediately. Despite apparently coming from feral parents, she had no fear of people and took to the litter box with no issues. She didn’t mind the kids (then three, five, and seven) picking her up and carrying her around.

She was playful and sweet but didn’t mind enforcing her boundaries when needed. One such time came a few months after settling into our home and hearts. Our youngest was in his room for nap/quiet time and the house had its usual calm, peaceful air that always comes with that blessed afternoon respite. I was downstairs puttering around, and suddenly I hear a wail to beat all wails. I ran upstairs to find my three-year-old holding Toothless by the tail . . . and Toothless likewise holding onto his arm with her claws! Neither one had any major damage to show for the struggle, but they each learned their lessons.

We believed Toothless to come from a family of feral cats because of her striking resemblance to those cats we often found prowling the neighborhood. As she grew up and developed yellow-green eyes and the round face characteristic of those cats we often saw on our walks and through our windows, we were confident those cats must be related. We would say, “Hi Toothless’s cousin!” when we saw them.

In fact, the neighborhood cats looked so similar that one night we accidentally kept one of them inside the entire night. We have a bit of a problem with our door to the garage not latching, so sometimes it is open when we do not realize. It must have been one of those times that one of the feral cats wandered in. We thought it strange to see Toothless downstairs as she usually hangs out upstairs, but we didn’t give it a second thought until the next morning — when we found a stray cat hiding under our furniture! What an ordeal trying to get that very unaccustomed-to-humans cat back outside! Funny enough, the kids don’t recall that event with any clarity — but Love certainly does. He ended up snatching the cat up by the tail and throwing him out the front door! I don’t believe that was the most humane way to handle it, but I wasn’t the one getting attacked by a feral cat so I will reserve judgment on the method of extraction.

Toothless so easily became a fixture in our lives, it felt like we were meant to rescue her from that truck engine. She was the perfect companion for our active boys. She was an anchor through the loss of an elderly cat who passed away when Toothless was still young. She offered comfort and entertainment and always meowed for the boys loudly to let us know she missed them when they were gone.

It was a total shock to find her laying down one Friday night about three weeks ago, unwilling to move and breathing with difficulty. We took her to the vet as soon as we could, and after a day of IV fluids and observation she was released with a course of antibiotics and a diagnosis: pneumonia. We were so relieved to have her home, and we kept her comfortable in my eight-year-old’s bedroom as she recovered. She was unable to take the full course of antibiotics as she would not eat, despite being offered every kind of tempting treat we could think of. However, after stopping the meds and getting a few good meals, she seemed to be making a recovery. Her breathing was back to normal, her playfulness returned, and we kept the antibiotics in case anything else cropped up.

About a week ago, unsurprisingly, the breathing issue returned. We immediately tried to restart the antibiotics only to find that they were no good (the bottle advised discarding if there was discoloration, and there was). We called the vet and got different meds to try, hoping the different medication would be more tolerable for her, so she might eat with it. We gave her the daily dose, and she vomited it back up. The vet advised bringing her in the next day so they could administer the medication, so we made our plans to take her in early Wednesday morning before we went to a service event with our church.

The boys and I all went together believing this would be a quick stop. We petted the office’s orange tabby while the vet tech took Toothless to the back. A moment later, she was back to tell us she was not doing well, and to just sit tight while they try to help her. Not more than five minutes later, the veterinarian came out with tears in her eyes, shaking her head.

Toothless had so much fluid in her lungs that she could not clear her airway after aspirating on the medicine. They tried to give her oxygen, but it was too late.

We all got to see her one last time. They cleaned her up and wrapped her in a soft blue blanket, and she looked like she was sleeping with her eyes open. My older boys just looked at her and cried, while the youngest petted her one last time; he didn’t understand that she was gone until we got in the car to go home without her.

My heart breaks at the loss of our sweet Toothless, and it breaks double for the grief I cannot carry for my boys. They miss her so, so much.

In my last post, I focused on the highlight of our week and enjoyed recounting the immense blessings of having friends that span communities. But as I hit “publish”, I felt that all-too-familiar reality a writer feels of writing something true but incomplete. Yes, we had a wonderful birthday party on Saturday . . . And we said goodbye to Toothless on Wednesday.

The grief and the joy can coexist. The joy doesn’t overshadow the grief. I find it timely that we watched The Sheep Detectives as a family last weekend. Unlike the sheep who can forget on command, we can’t and we don’t want to forget Toothless. The pain of remembering her brings a sweetness to the joys we still get to experience here. Life is short, sometimes far too short.

RIP Toothless, ~July 2023 – July 15, 2026

Procrastinating & Reflecting

I should probably be scurrying about like Mrs Tiddlemouse fussing over the state of my house and trying to get it all tidy. I do not have it in me. We live here; it’s clean enough for us; I will give the bathroom a once-over tomorrow before guests arrive and make sure we don’t have any dirty rags hanging out around the sink.

Tomorrow, we host our annual Family Birthday Party which for now is focused on the younger ones. As they mature, I hope to keep the annual summer party alive with a growing focus on the family as a whole. Mine and Love’s wedding anniversary is in July, and a while back I heard of a family doing a “family birthday party” on the parents’ anniversary and that stuck with me. We did become a family in July, after all; it’s worth noting and celebrating. For now, however, we are enjoying throwing a big celebration for the kids, whose birthdays span the summer months.

Love went out to acquire some balloons (we are so prepared, ha ha) and my job was to . . . clean? But it’s almost 10pm and I plan to be up early and I got distracted on the internet like any genuine elder millennial, so here we are.

Aaaaand, the party has come and gone, and the only snag was not ordering enough pizza. We should have gotten thirteen and instead we got . . . eight. The year before we hadn’t planned on having food and decided last minute to get pizzas, only to have them arrive after most of the guests had left. I did not want a repeat of leftover pizza for days, so I overcorrected by . . . a lot.

Anywho, the kids had so much fun they were sad that it was over; we hosted over fifty people; my mother-in-law’s slushie machine was a huge hit; we got to see some people we hadn’t seen in ages.

While I am not a party person, and I don’t seek out large gatherings, I love seeing people enjoy one another’s company. Most of the people at the party were engaged, talking with people they didn’t know and catching up with those they did. Very few people got their phones out unless they were taking pictures. Everyone made themselves at home. It was amazing to see people from all different communities all participating in a celebration of our children.

Love and I believe our children worth all the fuss, but I am still moved by how many people showed up for them. We are unbelievably blessed, and our children are growing up in a shower of love and blessing. It is almost incomprehensible to me.

Heading out to church now . . . Thank you for reading. This blog exists because of people like you who take the time to read my silly musings and tell me you enjoyed reading. Remind me to tell you all about how a unicorn job fell in my lap last week. Until next time . . .

A Call to Read the Psalms

This week I am not brimming with something to talk about. I could delve into my perennial frustration with being a human. I could talk about the subjugation of friendship to media platforms. I have much to say about homeschooling influencers and the unbelievable amount of people who are preying on parents who just want to do what is best for their kids.

My husband said I could write about what I thought about the sermon this morning. I don’t feel like I have much to say, but here goes . . .

The sermon was about Psalm 34. The church with which we’re currently worshipping is doing a summer series on Psalms with various preachers. Psalms can be overlooked or seen as supplemental to understanding YHWH. When I was younger, I spent the majority of my time in the New Testament and was always making note of the commands so I could follow them. (I was terrified of being “no better than the demons”, and I didn’t truly grasp that I was literally incapable of obeying on my own. That is a whole different post.) Psalms felt like something older people who already were good at obeying might read. It is a pattern I observed, that older people quoted more from Psalms than the younger people. And older people seemed to cling to the Psalms in a way I couldn’t quite understand. I assumed that it was because of their maturity.

Well, I know I am not mature, but in the last few years I have discovered that nothing compares with the Psalms if you want to know who God is and who you are as a believer, and how He works in the world. Are you wondering if you’re worth anything? Psalm 139. Are you frustrated that people who want nothing to do with God or His ways seem to prosper? Psalm 73. Are you wondering if He could possibly still love you after all you have done? Psalm 51. Feel forgotten? Psalm 86. Those are just off the top of my head. I am sure someone more diligent than I has already compiled an index of Psalms. But really, nothing beats just reading them regularly and finding their words rising to your mind in those moments of uncertainty or joy.

Psalm 34 is in essence of psalm of triumph; David had escaped from the Philistine king and was extolling God for this. Like most psalms, it masterfully weaves human emotion with God’s unshakable glory.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.
    Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!
Fear the Lord, you his godly people,
    for those who fear him will have all they need.

While we love to quote “taste and see”, David didn’t forget that the fear of the Lord, taking refuge in Him, is a requirement for tasting that goodness. I know the analytic among us will likely see this as condition for God’s love. All I can say to that is this: if you read the Psalms, you will find a better argument for trusting God than all the explanations I can give. His steadfast love endures forever. He is worthy of praise. His mercy is unfathomable and He desires His people in a way that would make most sensible people blush.

I love to make much of God’s mercy, but I can’t do that without also making much of His worthiness . . . and I fear in making much of His holiness, majesty, glory I lose the people He wants to save and further entrench those of whom He said, “I never knew you.” This is my failure, but the Psalms show the way:

Unfailing love and truth have met together.
    Righteousness and peace have kissed! – Psalm 85:10

Read the Psalms.

Some Clunky Thoughts from Six Years Ago, And Some More Today

Writing to think

WordPress brought this post to my attention, and I think it bears repeating that ignoring our differences doesn’t make them go away. It also bears repeating that the solution to racism and any other “ism” has never been and will never be rooted in the sovereignty or sufficiency of mankind. And finally, I will say it again and again that while I grew up poor and am no longer poor, I will never say that I have “done well for myself” or worked myself out of poverty. I was lifted by the grace of God out of dumpsters deeper than digging for change to pay for our next meal. Every day of my life has been nothing short of a miracle, even (especially?) the ones I thought I wasn’t good enough to be here for.

Delicate Flower

Something I think about too often is this time when my supervisor told me that I am a “delicate flower”. She was not trying to compliment me. This supervisor routinely told me that I was making her job harder, that she didn’t understand why I was hired, that all I did was make mistakes and that in this job, mistakes are not allowed. “You are just a delicate flower,” she sneered; “I know you go crying in the bathroom when I give you any criticism. I don’t even know what you are doing here.” When I finally got the courage to ask for a transfer from the person who actually hired me, the Operations Officer, she wondered if maybe there was a language barrier.

A language barrier. Sure. I shrugged and said, “Whatever it is, I don’t think I can keep working here if I have to work for her.”

I wonder often if I am just too sensitive. Do other people just hear criticism like that and “take it on the chin”? Do they respond with, “Okay, I will stop making your job harder and never make a mistake again,” with a little rueful, penitent smile? Do they fire back with something about how difficult it is to work for such a particular person?

I have received criticism without batting an eye. I don’t always take it personally when people make unflattering observations or comments about me. I have been a liar, adulterer, murderer-in-my-heart, envious, ungrateful, disobedient. I am not someone who walks around believing that I am in any way a good person, or even always a well-meaning person. Criticism doesn’t make me fold.

What makes me feel like a delicate flower is raised voices. My fight-or-flight kicks in pretty quick when someone around me is yelling, insulting (calling names), using exasperated tones, or threatening. My ability to think rationally, even to the point of understanding what the person is saying, vanishes. As I have gotten older, my ability to steel myself against verbal assaults has diminished. I don’t know if I have ever been the type of person to laugh while someone else is clearly having an intense moment. That has been the case as long as I can remember, but what is happening lately is this lingering sense of I am not okay, long after the yelling has stopped or I have left the situation. My mind swirls with fear. I do not feel safe.

Over a year ago, someone went berserk on me in a parking lot for hitting their car. The kids were all talking and I was distracted and all I was thinking about was getting parked so I could just stop for a moment and CRUNCH. Ooh, that was bad enough, but the person whose car I hit was sitting in it and she was livid. I think too often about that. I am more careful in parking lots, quick to hush the kids, afraid not just of hitting someone’s car, but of what the person might do. The kids probably remember this incident, but they aren’t scarred by it. I am.

I am not scarred in the sense that I replay the scene or constantly fear someone yelling at me again; I am scarred in the sense that I don’t trust myself to be okay if someone does. That may seem like splitting hairs, but the difference is staggering. Fear of someone yelling is focused outward. I can scan for threatening people and avoid them. I can drive more safely in parking lots. What I am afraid of cannot be avoided. I am afraid that I am not a strong person. I am afraid that I make things worse by reacting to anger instead of choosing to respond to it. I am afraid that something is terribly wrong with me, broken inside me, and I am terrified that there is no way to bind it up or heal it.

I don’t know if these are words fit to be shared. I just know that this is what kept me silent yesterday when my husband was asking me to please just talk to him. I spent years whining and acting like a victim. I don’t need to go on and on about how unsafe I feel in my own skin, having these sensitive ears, carrying this too-tender heart. I do not need to make much of me.

So in hopes of rescuing this post, I will answer my fear with what I know to be true: there is One who binds up and heals my brokenness. Fortunately/unfortunately, He refuses to do so by making me strong. His strength is sufficient in weakness. I may live the rest of my life practically blacking out when people yell at me. That doesn’t make me less safe, because my safety doesn’t come from my own coping skills. He is near to the brokenhearted. No matter what my broken internal alarm system is screaming, I know that He is near. And I do not have to tolerate abuse. Refusing to stay in a room where someone is yelling at me isn’t weakness. Do I really believe that? No. Should I? Yes, one hundred times yes. It is not weakness to leave an abusive situation, regardless of who the abuser is.

Maybe I am a delicate flower. But it doesn’t matter, really. Whatever I am, or was, I count as loss compared to the surpassing knowledge of knowing Christ. He is continually forming me, and I can say with great joy that it is better to be a delicate flower in His hand than a strong rock apart from Him.

Walking this out may take a lifetime. But the truth remains: God is good. His strength is perfected in weakness. All my hope is in Him.

Excuses

My latest excuse for not posting online is that I don’t want to feed the LLMs. I figure if I post something on the internet it’s fair game; the AI goblins will surely gobble it up and spit it out as some Foundmercified version of whatever ugliness it reflects back at the fools who eat up its psuedo-psychobabble.

I am rusty. That’s the real reason I don’t write much: I try to put out something meaningful and it either feels disjointed or smacks of the social media I spent too many hours consuming. I haven’t read enough real books lately. I discovered Substack in the last year, and while at first I was thrilled with the longer form content I quickly got sucked into the Notes page and scroll-scroll-scrolled my brain to mush.

My brain isn’t mush, but it is moving slower. I have so many thoughts, but everything else takes precedence. Part of that is as it should be. I take care of more than a few people; I have some special needs to tend to among my charges and myself as well. I do wonder if my soul wouldn’t benefit from a bit more of this, however. Simply the tactile experience of typing scratches an itch I sometimes believe will drive me up a wall and is often left un-scratched.

My latest thought is about confirmation bias, and how if I am not guarding against it, I can wreck my mental state before I have had a chance to get out of bed in the morning. The tricky thing is remembering that a large portion of what occurs around us and even towards us is neutral; we assign meaning to events based on our preconceived beliefs.

For example, I want to believe that my children arguing with each other is evidence that I am a horrible person whose influence they should be far removed from. (My English teacher would fix that sentence; I know it’s clunky.) The truth is, my children argue with each other for myriad reasons, and my influence is just one factor.

I have wrestled deeply with why I want so much to believe lies about myself, and why it is so difficult to rewrite the scripts. I think the answer is actually stupid simple: I want to believe hurtful things because somewhere along the way those beliefs seemed to help me, and my sin-wrecked body and brain take time to catch up to my renewed soul — because of pride-driven confirmation bias.

I have to have compassion on the dead-and-dying old me, because the new-in-Christ me was only ever rescued by unfathomable mercy. When I catch myself collecting evidence for some garbage belief, I am learning to ask myself, “What if I’m wrong? What if I’m not {fill in the blank with just about every hurtful adjective you can imagine}? What if I am who God says I am?”

I can’t jump straight to affirmations. Telling myself I am a new creation doesn’t unravel the yarn. I have to start where I am; if I am in the middle of spinning a tale that depends heavily on me being {insert adjective}, I have to stop it by first asking myself if I’m sure that I’m right.

Confirmation bias isn’t entirely evil; it is a function of our brains’ amazing streamlining abilities. Why question everything all the time? That is exhausting. Eventually, confirmation bias will work in my favor as the lies are less reinforced and the truth becomes the more worn neural pathway.

But in the meantime, maybe I should write and post more because I need to put more evidence out there that God has given me a means to bless people with words. I could use a bit more evidence that, despite being rusty, I still have a gift. I have a purpose beyond meeting the needs of my family — high purpose though that may be, and more than enough if I didn’t possess gifts outside of an ability to tend to needs. (I must say, I do not feel gifted in that at all, actually, but it does feel like a gift to me that I am able to do the laundry, dishes, homeschooling, etc.) Maybe writing and sharing my writing will help me overcome some of my “all I’m good at is cleaning and accounting”, self-protective lies.

But in the meantime, though it’s not much, I do hope this little article blesses someone. If I made you think, or made you laugh, let me know.

SDG

Gospel

I go on detours. Sometimes it seems like the detours take more time than the actual race. I have spent years in ditches, weeks on mountain ranges (just look at those clouds!), days meandering in meadows or swamps. If life were a finish-first type race, this would be devastating.

Life is not a finish-first type race; it is a finish-strong type race. Thank God.

Detours may be off the path, but I cannot deny how those detours inform how I walk the path when I return. Falling from heights has made me grateful, truly humble. Being chased from swampland by an alligator has made me think of it as the safest foundation. God pulling me up from the ditch has me dancing, not walking, on the rock beneath my feet. Every detour has only made the path more beautiful, more certain, more alluring. And while my desire to remain on this path grows with each detour, I find my tendency to stray no less.

What does this mean?

Only that after such a long detour this past several months of swimming in perspectives that glorify human experience, grasping at understanding like one who does not know he is in the dark, accepting reasoning that falls short of gospel-reasoning, I come up for air and find that the path is still here; the Ancient of Days is, in fact, still unchanged.

And my greatest problem is still — not the society I live in, the pain I feel, my coping mechanisms, DNA or even the sin of others — my greatest problem is my own sin. My own rebellion, my own hard-heartedness, my own selfishness, greed, and pride. And while all those other problems exist, if I attempt to understand them outside of the deep knowledge that my greatest problem has been gloriously solved for all eternity, I will despair.

Lately I have felt like I need to untangle all that I have gone through as a child and young adult, and spending so much time reading about the life experiences of others. I have been reading some (really good) parenting advice and I dipped my toes into the waters of psychology again as a means of trying to understand myself and how on earth I might heal a soul and body that has been through more than some people experience in twice as many years. YouTube recommended a channel about healing from cPTSD. The word “safety” keeps coming up in terms that my ancestors would have had a good laugh over. A dirty house makes you feel “unsafe”? Lipschein, I think the word you are looking for is “uncomfortable”.

One step into the waters of psychology quickly pulls me under, as these are the waters of my youth. I go from just wanting a little more context than I can find in scripture for my particular areas of struggle to breathing the water of God-outside-the-world, not relevant to the everyday, insufficient or indifferent to my emotional distress. God wasn’t enough to explain, so He lets me see how far I get without Him. Turns out, not far. I go from feeling like I am walking a narrow road with a small lamp at my feet to plunged in total darkness, no path at all, only a relentless tidal wave that batters me and threatens to pull me under.

The most upside-down thing is what brings me topside: a reminder that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood”; a reminder that the gospel tells me my biggest struggle isn’t a body that “keeps score”, a brain full of faulty wiring, or even my own understanding of how to deal with those things. My biggest problem is that I am prone to take detours.

The detours are not the problem; I am not the problem; I am simply a human being who wanders like we all do. My choosing to take the detours — that choosing is the problem. But thanks be to God, I know the path. So many do not. So I am confronted today with a blessing that does not look like one until you see the other side of it: I have sinned and I can repent.

God uses all these things for good. Some of this I see; some of this I must trust. But this I know after so much wandering, so much meandering — He even uses my sin.

So I am going to publish this and it will probably serve more to confuse than edify, so if you have read this far let me leave you with something unequivocal:

The good news of the gospel is that Jesus Christ came to save sinners. He didn’t come primarily to bring rest to the weary (though He does), to bring justice to earth (though He will), or to make us “better people” (though we find in the course of following Him we have no choice but to look more like Him who is infinitely better than all we can ask or imagine). Jesus, on the cross, solved our biggest problem. When things get heavy or confusing, start there. You might just find yourself asking Him to keep you near.

A Reflection on Appreciation

Katie said she misses my writing. Here’s something I messed around with a couple months ago and kept waiting for inspiration on how it should end. Looks like the ending is good enough. It’ll do, anyway.

I was in my late twenties when I posted a “shower thought” on Facebook: Saying thank you when someone does what they should anyway is sorta like thanking them for existing. No one responded except for one lone comment: It’s called showing appreciation. Try it sometime. Ok, ok, the “try it sometime” is probably an addendum of my bitter imagination and several years’ rumination, but the correction stung. 

In fourth or fifth grade, I was asked to be a reading buddy for younger children. I did not do it for long. I can’t remember how it ended, but I do remember being chastised for my lack of encouragement and enthusiasm. 

When I was doing some team-building exercise with my youth group in high school, my team wasn’t doing well. In an attempt to spur us on, I called out, “Guys that was pathetic!” Mrs. H knitted her brows at me and said, “Well now that wasn’t very nice.”

Appreciation. 
Encouragement.
Niceness.

These are things I learned in time, and often through these kind of unpleasant experiences. I still am quite confused by niceness, but I try to make up for this, and frankly most other things, with genuine kindness. 

I grew up being told, as most children of my generation were, that I was good inside and smart and could do anything. And yet I was also berated constantly for my thoughtlessness, rarely praised for anything but perfect results, and frequently told that I can do better. 

I grew up believing that the way to success is through constant criticism. And why praise anything less than the best? It cheapens the meaning of praise. I grew up thinking that spurring people on meant correcting every error until all errors were gone. Then and only then would it make sense to let up, to show appreciation and offer praise. 

I started to see in my mid to late thirties (far too late) that this is entirely backwards. We don’t grow from condemnation. Success isn’t the result of ruthless criticism. Ruthless criticism kills the drive to succeed at all. Sometimes it even kills the will to live. 

I cringe at high-school me shouting, “That was pathetic!” But I also want to wrap her up in the biggest, warmest hug and tell her that it’s okay — you don’t know what you don’t know. Because I know now that this is what I needed. I know now that we grow through nurture, which includes a bit of pruning, but is certainly not the whole work. 

I don’t post much anywhere anymore (another learning curve), but when I do it is with this in mind: the world is full of hurting people who are still learning what “appreciation” means. The least I can do is be kind. 

Tell us one thing you hope people say about you.

“Every time I see her she makes me think about Jesus.”

I imagine it said in all sorts of ways. I don’t care how. To be so associated with Jesus that one can’t think of me without being reminded of Him, that is what I hope.

Phillipians 3:13-14

My Secret to Saving Hundreds on Audio Entertainment

I’m gonna do one of those posts. You know those posts. The “try this!” “Three Easy Steps!” posts. I don’t typically write like this, but I have been sitting on this information for months and letting this and that get in the way of sharing it. No more. Today is the day.

First, you have to know that involved parents have been hassled for years now about screentime. Many companies have found a way to capitalize on this guilt most parents have about both excessive screens and not entertaining their children every waking minute. It is important to include both of these guilt-trips together, because one independent of the other would not be profitable for companies peddling screen-free entertainment for children.

If you have children and are on social media at all, you’ve seen these advertisements for Yoto Player, Tonie, or Storypod. All of these things basically offer the same thing: wi-fi free, screen-free audio entertainment. I happened to catch the Storypod on sale about two years ago and bought it because my children are wild and I could just imagine what would happen to the cards that go with the Yoto player or the hard plastic figurines that go with the Tonie.

I will describe the Storypod for a bit in case you’re unfamiliar, because the concept is pretty neat. A Storypod is a screen-free, interactive audio learning system designed for young children (typically ages 0-6) that uses a combination of physical “Crafties” (small, tactile objects) and audio content to provide engaging learning experiences through listening, with features like interactive buttons, stories, songs, and trivia questions, all aimed at promoting developmental skills without screen time. (Thank you AI for the description.) It is very kid-friendly and one of our favorite features from the beginning has been the Craftie that comes with the Storypod which allows us to record our own stories and songs for the kids using the Storypod app. Unfortunately, the recorder does not allow pausing audio recordings. I don’t believe I need to explain how frustrating that is for parents of young children who are frequently interrupted. Also, each soft “Craftie” costs around $20 and we’re library people if you know what I mean.

We have overall enjoyed our Storypods and still use them frequently, but aren’t willing to continuously purchase new content, have difficulty recording new content, and it doesn’t connect via bluetooth. Naturally, that hinders us from keeping it fresh for the kids. We also weren’t able to afford one for our oldest, who absolutely loves audiobooks.

Well, one day, my husband pointed out the mini speaker we had bought for $20 has an SD card slot. “We could put music on a SD card for the kids,” he mused. Before long we figured out that we could record stories on the SD card using my phone’s built-in voice recorder and I started recording stories and songs for my eldest.

Today, I want to walk you through the simple process of making your own!

First, purchase a speaker with an SD card. The one we love for ease-of-use, portability, and bluetooth features is the one I linked above: Anker Soundcore Mini.

Next, make sure you have some mini SD cards. These ones will do: 2 Pack SD Card 32GB.

Open up your phone to the Voice Recording app and do your thing! Sing a lullaby, spin a yarn, tell a joke, or read one of your kid’s favorite books.

Once you’re done, email the file to yourself so you can put the mp3 on the SD card from your computer. If your voice recording app saves files to mp3 automatically, you’re smarter than me because you don’t have an iPhone. For iPhone users, recordings are m4a files that needed to be converted to mp3 to work on the speaker. Use the link provided to download a Windows app that we use.

To put the file on your micro SD card, an external card reader may be necessary. This one looks good: SmartQ C368 USB 3.0 Card Reader. Save the file to the card and pop it into your speaker. Press the mode button until it starts playing your content and enjoy cringing at the sound of your own voice!

Well, I am not very good at these types of posts. But if you keep looking at these ads and thinking, “Man, I wish I could afford that!” consider that I own one of those fancy things and we use our $30 homemade “Storypod” more than the expensive one! We have the option of using bluetooth and streaming, or pre-recorded content on the SD card. Simply that flexibility has made it our go-to for quiet time or bedtime.

You still have time to buy a speaker, record some treasured lullabies and favorite stories, and gift it for Christmas this year.

Happy recording!

Obligatory happy post 

I’ve been writing online since I was 17 years old and I have too much of a headache right now to figure out how long that’s been. Let’s just say over 20 years. That sounds totally wrong, but it’s probably right. Wheeee lack of number sense.

I’ve been writing online for a long time and it never fails that after I write something heavy or sad or depressing that I follow it up with a post that is lighthearted and easy to read to show the one or two people who actually read this thing that yes I’m still alive and capable of being lighthearted.

I think this is the longest I’ve gone just leaving a “negative” post up. For a while, I was committed to never posting anything like that because I was fairly convinced it would be unhelpful at best, possibly triggering. I haven’t gotten any feedback suggesting it be taken down so it stays. I had a couple people tell me I should post it before I did. It may seem like I send these posts out without even considering an audience at all, but I do.

Ultimately, I post on the Internet for that person who needs to see another sojourner. All the answers I have ever found were in the Bible, so I don’t think I can do any better than to point to that sweet Treasure Book. The thing is, sometimes we see the Word better when it’s woven into the context of a persons travels through this life.

Since I posted last, I haven’t exceeded a three on that scale I made up. Simply writing about it changed my perspective. And most of the change occurred in the penultimate paragraph, my own experience with the transforming Word of God.

When I am honest about my weaknesses, it is always an invitation for both of us to look to Christ.

I don’t know if this obligatory happy post was very happy, but I think it needs to go out regardless.

Thank you for being here.

List 30 things that make you happy.

  • Walks
  • Clouds
  • How the clouds declare God’s glory
  • Toddler giggles
  • New pens
  • Church
  • Fresh air
  • Clean sheets
  • Puzzles, especially with company
  • Babies
  • Reading
  • Daydreaming
  • Nature-watching
  • Hearing the creativity of God in the calls and cries of His creatures
  • Mushrooms
  • Helping
  • Breeze
  • Organization
  • Early mornings
  • Quiet
  • The sound the pages of my Bible make when I turn them
  • Simplicity
  • Laughing at myself
  • Listening to calm music
  • Hearing a child say “oh I get it!” — whatever they’ve “gotten”
  • Watching the sky slowly change colors in the evening
  • Hope
  • Thinking
  • For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:3-7)

That’s only 29 but that’s more than enough.

God is good.