An Incredible Heritage

When we are young, whatever family scenario we are born into seems like the norm.  It is only upon growing up and seeing the world from many perspectives do we learn that family has many connotations and takes on many different designs.  Our first definition of family forms around us from a very young age.  In my early world, family encompassed quite a large group of people.  It included Grandparents, great Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles, great Aunts and Uncles and cousins of the first, second, and third generation.  It was an incredible heritage of a large and loving family circle that provided me with incredible roots and stability.  I have always known so much love throughout my life and only now as I am in “mid-life” do I fully understand the incredible blessing of such a heritage.  In having to face the very sad experience of letting go of a beloved cousin, I was reminded that we are rich in so many ways.  We were all sad and hurting at this loss, but we were all there together, loving on each other, holding each other up, sharing memories, and sharing the love that is our heritage.  I know that my cousin Beth would have loved the gathering yesterday because she so loved family.  What a tribute to Beth that she brought us all together and reminded us of the incredible heritage of love that we have as a family.  It was a gift in the midst of such sadness and one that I want to do a better job of treasuring in the future.  To my family circle that has loved me and supported me all of my life, I love you and I am so grateful for the comfort and love of each of you as we do this thing called "life" together.

Just STOP it already!

As someone who has struggled with weight issues most of my life, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to comment on this situation.  I have suffered through years of fat shaming by other girls/women.  All through middle school, high school, and even in college, I was subjected to blatant and humiliating jokes as well as overhearing whispers and cruel comments about my weight.  There was a girl in high school named Kelly Reynolds who seemed to just live to humiliate me and it was absolute torture to run into her every day.  This type of humiliation just invades the self esteem of a person.  It breaks you down and makes you feel like you are not worthy to walk the earth.  Some would call my last statement an exaggeration, but it truly is not.  I found myself apologizing for my very existence at times.  There were few people I truly felt like I could be my real self with and I worked extremely hard to be pleasing in other ways so that I would have something of worth to offer.  I could sing so I fixated on trying to develop that talent so that I was of some value because years of humiliation made me feel as though I was nothing.  It impacted my life on so many levels and in ways that I am not even free to talk about yet.  So two things I notice that I want to point out about this situation.

1.  The woman being shamed is at the gym trying to do something about  her health.  Where is the credit for the fact that she is trying?  We should be applauding and encouraging her. Whoever she is I say, "good job and keep it up!"  It is so sad that even in the midst of trying there are others that will be there to tear a person down.  At least she is naked in a perfectly appropriate and private place.  The same cannot be said for Miss Mathers.

2.  For the most part I have found it to be true that all hate, all nastiness, all criticism is a learned behavior and not something that we naturally do as children. This nastiness starts in the lives of young girls after they overhear their mothers criticizing other people or possibly as they receive criticism from their mothers for being overweight.  Mothers who have an unhealthy obsession with their looks raise daughters that do not have a healthy concept of self worth.  They turn the criticism from their mothers and bestow it on other girls to pass off the hurt they feel.  This can make for some pretty nasty behavior.  Trust me...I see at as a middle school assistant principal all the time.  

So what is my point?  We need to do a better job of teaching acceptance and understanding to our children.  I talk to my girls about healthy eating habits and I warn them of the difficulties that a weight problem can bring, but I don't badger them and I don't make them feel like they are unacceptable if they are a little heavy.  My mother always handled this area with the most sensitivity so I have a good example to follow here.  The other thing is having sensitivity for what people are going through.  My weight issues were a result of some health problems that started in puberty and really resulted from being prescribed a steroid drug for long term use.  The drug had a horrible and long lasting impact on my weight and my body in general.  So not everyone is overweight because of slothful living and we would do well to remember that.  I would ask the mothers out there who teach their daughters in particular to be critical of others, please end the cycle by not fat shaming anyone.  We all have our crosses to bare and unfortunately weight problems are very evident for others to see. I guarantee you that Miss Mathers and every other skinny lady out there have their own issues that are every bit as shameful as those of us who have a weight problem.  Lucky for them it isn't something that they have to wear on the outside for the world to see.  I know that I will battle my weight for the rest of my life, but at least I am still trying to change it. Oh how I wish we lived in a world where people were free enough from their own "stuff" that they would choose to see the good in others instead of the very worst.  What a much nicer world this would be!

Who gets the glory?

While my husband has offered this same wisdom to me for years, it took some wisdom from a stranger for me to truly acknowledge that I do put people on pedestals.  We all see celebrities and royalty as people who are set apart from the rest, but should they be held in such high esteem?  I have my celebrity crushes as much as the next person, but I have never seen that “crush” as placing that celebrity in God’s place. 

In the book Wild and Free, the author states that, “as we’re thinking about glory and trying to understand the concept, we don’t have to look too far into our own world.  Let’s take a moment to look at people in our culture who get glory.  Politicians, celebrities, Christian pastors and leaders, and reality TV stars.  We ascribe some sort of reverence to them, varying with how well-known they are and how potentially successful they are.  We like to see into their daily lives through social media or pictures, but for the most part we realize that they are incredibly set apart.”  “Essentially when we set aside our human celebrities and leaders, we consecrate them, but this is for God – He is the only one truly worthy of being set aside and honored and put on a pedestal to worship.”

The part that convicted me is twofold.  The first place where I felt guilt was in the recognition of “Christian pastors and leaders” as a category of people we exalt.  The second part was the reality that only God should be set aside and honored in this way.  We live in a society that tells us this type of exaltation of others is acceptable.  We have always accepted the eccentric desire of some celebrities to be exalted, but what about the clergy?  I was struck with two thoughts here:

I have exalted clergymen in the past myself.  I have placed them on a pedestal and worshiped them in a way that was meant only for God.  I will admit that it happened more frequently when I was a youth and as one who lost her father at 12, I was always searching for a male to fill that role, even if only from afar.  I have a tendency to still let myself go in this direction at times, but it usually revolves around holding up one as a standard bearer in viewing another.  Again that whole last sentence has to do with judgment so it isn’t much better, but let’s just say that Frank Cox is my ideal Pastor and Keith McBroom will always be my ideal Music Minister.  At least I recognize that I still have work to do in this area. 

We have several clergy who put themselves in this exalted position and this is far scarier to me.  While a Pastor has to choose carefully who they have deep associations with, they are called as we all are to love and minister to even the least of these.  There is an attitude that has started to pervade the modern church movement where the Pastor is seen as untouchable and in fact is completely unapproachable.  The Pastor sees himself as set apart and eventually starts living the self- fulfilling prophecy of local celebrity.  Essentially...they believe the hype that others put out there about them. Without naming names, just try to get an appointment for counseling with the Pastor of certain churches and even as a member of the church you may well be turned down.  This saddens me as do many other changes that I see in the men who are shepherding the flock these days. 

My final thought is one of thanksgiving for my current Pastor.  He shepherds the flock well and I am thankful for the way he serves the Lord.  He loves the people of his congregation and he makes that known in actions and in words.  I know that Pastors have huge demands placed on their time and they have to protect their family life and sanity time, but a Pastor that has no accountability of time, that refuses to counsel parishioners, that doesn’t see the need to minister to his entire flock should give us pause.  Of course this is just my spin on things.  

Sharing my Daddy with my girls...

My girls have unfortunately known that death is a part of life from their earliest beginnings.  My father passed away when I was twelve years old, and my girls have grown up hearing me talk about him.  Even though it was a long time ago, Bob Evans remains very alive in my thoughts and in my memory.  I have always spoken of him to Julia and Jenna and shown them pictures of our family, but they have been too young to do much more than that.  I decided that this summer was the right time to take them out to his grave and to open their minds to who he was a little more than just stories or those times of the year when I am sad and my husband whispers to them, "Mommy misses her Daddy."  I decided to make it a craft experience and devote a whole day to his memory.  I told the girls this morning that we were going to go to the craft store and buy all the things we needed to make a flower arrangement for their grandfather.  They both agreed that blue was a good color.  I picked out the hydrangeas, Julia picked the tall flowers, and Jenna picked out the filler flowers around the bottom.  We came home and made the flower arrangement and I talked to them about why he was so special to me.  Both girls were quiet and respectful as I spoke of how much their grandfather would have loved them.  They asked questions that I think they have been wanting to ask me for a long time.  In their minds were deep fears that they could possibly lose their own father as I had lost mine.  I took this opportunity to reassure them that their Daddy was very healthy and let's face it..."too stubborn" to die.  They laughed about that and then walked the flowers out to Daddy's grave with me.  Jenna was very quiet and reflective.  She looked at the grave for a long time and didn't really say anything.  Julia felt compelled to say a few words to her grandfather and she asked me if it was silly to talk to him.  We placed the flowers and spoke our few words to him.  We lingered there for a little while until it felt right to leave.  It wasn't a big emotional scene or anything, but I really think that their grandfather is less of a mystery to them now.  This experience gave them the opportunity to truly contemplate who he was and why their mother "misses her Daddy" sometimes.  It is not a daily pain anymore, but it is always there in the recesses.  I wish Daddy could have known my girls.  He would have adored Julia's gentle, sweet nature and he would have been completely fascinated with the little firecracker that is my Jenna.  My two girls seemed to instinctively know that there was something sacred about this experience.  Julia demonstrated a very clear understanding that her grandfather was in heaven and that she would meet him someday.  As we walked away from his grave and went back to the car, Julia said "goodbye grandfather."  I whispered, "I love you Daddy," and walked away with a smile.  If he could look down on us, he most certainly was grinning.  I drove away from the cemetery with an extreme sense of peace that I had done something very right as a mother by sharing my Daddy with my girls.

When you are a perfect parent to 10 or more children you can speak, but UNTIL THEN SHUT UP!

I know that my thoughts won't set this situation straight, but I had to put it out there.

I have been so blown away over the past two weeks as I have listened to the constant discussion about the Duggar family.  The judgment that has been spewed by every talk show host, news correspondent and by the public in general has been horrific.  I keep asking myself why everyone is so intent on making this so much more dramatic than the facts allow.  YES, sexual abuse of any kind is a serious thing and it should be taken seriously.  I am a survivor of molestation so I know exactly what it can do to your self-esteem and the long reaching impact can be difficult.  I support the Joyful Heart Foundation and I share my story whenever I feel like it might help someone else, but I do not now nor did I ever feel that the teenage boy who molested me should be put in jail.  When it came out, my parents were devastated and even through my six year old eyes I remember the struggle that was on them to figure out what to do.  Like the Duggars, they did not see the point in ruining the future of a young man by making it a criminal situation for the young man to overcome.  The parents of the young man were informed and it was agreed that they would take the proper steps in making sure that he got the help he needed.  He is a happily married man and a productive member of society and when I reflect back on it, I truly believe it was a boy in midst of puberty who was extremely curious about the opposite sex.  I do not think that he truly set out to hurt me, but was caught up in self-gratification and exploration. 

From reading the information available and listening to all the coverage on the Duggar situation, it seems to me that it was a very similar circumstance.  Josh was curious about the opposite sex and he allowed his curiosity and self-gratification to go too far.  He recognized it was wrong and confessed his actions to his parents who were stunned and were not sure what to do.  They could have easily handled it all in house as it mostly involved their family and then no one would know anything had happened.  Do you really think as a parent you could destroy the life of one of your children over some inappropriate touching?  All of those that are so hot and heavy to criticize are saying that they know exactly how to handle this situation if it occurred in their own home?  You would turn in your 14 year old son to the police and allow him to go through the process without one moment of doubt or concern for the impact it would have on your family?  Josh didn’t have a juvenile record of other explicit or bad behavior.  He was not known for causing problems in their home or in the circles they interacted in.  This isn’t the case of a chronic screw up kid who was indulged and allowed to get away with stuff.  Instead of hastily doing something that might ruin Josh’s life, they pressed pause and tried to handle it in house.  This incident happened before they were protecting a television image so all the accusations that they covered it up for television are ludicrous.  All of the critics that are saying you would have handled it “the right way” have no idea what you would do if faced with the same situation.  You can’t know what you would do until you experience it and the specific set of circumstances that go with your story.

Throwing around the term pedophile and rapist in reference to Josh is slander and should be treated as such. If the Duggars had hidden something that turned out to be an ongoing problem, then that would even be different.  The fact is that Josh has worked very hard owning his own business.  He is married and has children of his own and by all accounts is a good father.  I don’t know anyone who is in their 30’s that would stand up and say they are alright to be judged on every incident of their past through their teenage years.  I have things that I certainly would not want revisited in public.  The image that the Duggars portray on television is the very reason that people are coming out of the wood work to join this witch hunt. Because they have portrayed themselves as God fearing people who try to live a life guided by their Christian principles does not in any way say that they are perfect.  In fact, the whole belief of Christianity is based on the fact that we are all just “sinners saved by grace.”  The Duggars have stated on multiple occasions that they are not perfect.  They are just a family that is unique due to its size and they have allowed their lives to play out on television.  Have they made all the right decisions...of course not.  Could this situation have been handled differently or better…maybe so, but what is the purpose behind all of this media frenzy?  All of it has served no purpose but to victimize the victims all over again and to take down a man who had moved passed this situation and had gone on to have a good life for himself and his family.  The ONLY reason that this family is being targeted is because they have not been willing to bend on the Biblical principles they live by.  That has infuriated certain liberal communities who are relishing in the perceived demise of this family.  If you go back through the Duggar television series and their books, they state MANY times that they are not perfect.  They describe faults and frailties and acknowledge that they have them all, but also state the set of standards that they believe is right for their lives. They work hard towards living up to those standards, but NO ONE is perfect.  Everyone has made mistakes and no one is immune to things that they regret and/or wish they could change. The blatant cruelty and malice of those leading the charge against the Duggar family in the interest of standing up for the victims is hard to fathom.  If this was a Kardashian family scenario, no one would even care.  The only reason anyone cares about this is because of the perceived gouge in the family’s armor.  It goes back to John 15:20, “If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you also.  If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.”

So in conclusion I say again…when you are the parent of 10 or more children and you have done it all perfectly…then you can speak, but UNTIL then….SHUT UP!  

The blessings of marriage in the right order!

There are few experiences in life that are special enough to leave a lasting impression, but a few weeks ago, I went to one of the sweetest weddings I have ever attended.  There were many reasons that it was so special and so memorable, but the most important difference in this wedding and other weddings was the acknowledged presence of Jesus in every part of the wedding festivities.  The whole weekend, friends that spoke on behalf of this couple, repeated the same things over and over.  Katie and Austin love Jesus and they live it every day.  Katie’s brother in law expressed his tremendous concern about Katie ever dating anyone because she lived her life to such a standard and was so good.  He wondered if anyone would ever be good enough for Katie and he meant that in the most sincere and respectful way.  I was moved to know that everyone who knew Katie thought that she was one of the closest outward expressions of Jesus that we ever see here on earth.  The groom was no less impressive.  He was also commended on his drive and tenacity to spread the word and help others live a more fulfilled Christian life.  Every person that spoke of Austin mentioned his complete desire to know Jesus and make him known.  One of Austin’s friends actually talked about playing video games with him while listening to Austin’s favorite sermons played aloud.  I kept feeling inspired and challenged by what a powerful ministry team these two will be as husband and wife.

It wasn’t actually said out loud, but we all knew that this couple had waited to do everything in the right order.  They had waited for marriage as the Bible instructs us to do.  They had prayed their way through their dating relationship and Austin had even given Katie a Bible with her married name on it as he proposed to her before leading her in prayer.  It was evident to everyone that the ties that bind them, even on their first day as one, are so incredibly strong because the ties are rooted in Jesus.  The consistency of their story inspired me.  I contemplated the unique blessings that must be on a marriage where everything is done in the right order.  I dreamed of my girls, who are growing up in this broken society, and prayed that they would both wait on God for their mate and then do everything in the right order.  I worry about our young people growing up in a society that has so warped the covenant of marriage and exploited the gifts God has given to us in marriage.  Katie and Austin reassure us that God’s entire perfect plan is still attainable for those who will wait upon Him.  What an incredible example!

I am sure that Austin and Katie will face struggles in their marriage.  There will be rough times and sad times, and disconnected times, but I wonder…maybe the blessing of doing it God’s way is truly the tie that binds forever.  In our fast food society where divorce is as acceptable as going through a drive through window for a meal, maybe the blessing that was so evident in watching Austin and Katie create their covenant with God is the absence of baggage in their relationship.  There is nothing to question or to wonder or to worry about.  It was right, it was real, and it was truly an opportunity to see into God’s very best expectations for us when we do it His way.  I am writing this blog entry because I want Austin and Katie to know that their example was a blessing, even to the old married folks in the crowd.  It is a pleasure to look towards the future for Austin and Katie.  I cannot wait to watch the blessings continue to unfold.  Thank you for letting us be part of your special day! 

Jennifer's Spin: Turning 40 and the lesson of the blackberry

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