Daughters

I am doing a study on Esther and throughout it (altho only 3 weeks now) I have learned and reflected on the craziness of being a girl. Lets face facts, most girls are maniacal, self-centered, self-driven, and petty towards each other. In high school, its all out for yourself, no matter who it is and where the cards fall, its all about making yourself the 'bigger' person. Girls, by far, are the first to cut a friend down, whether in front of that friend or behind their back. Girls start rumors about girls whom they are jealous of and for the most part girls are just mean. (That is the focus of our study this week, meanness.)  Girls are so mean that there are movies about mean girls, movies about mean boys who are not mean on their own but driven by a mean girl, media stories about women who are so mean that they make men do their mean things for them and let the men take the proverbial fall.  Everywhere you listen and look, girls are mean in this world.

It's amazing to me that I have 2 daughters who are so close to each other and so different from one another too. They are like beans and peas in a pod! The connection between my girls, well it's not unlike that of best friends who are stuck together at the hip forever, do everything, have their own language, and can look at each other and know without a doubt and without words that the other knows exactly what is being thought. They support each other in just about everything, encourage each other in all things, and, even in those moments of annoyance, they still believe in each other with all of their hearts. Jennifer, our oldest, is so nice that even when she wants to be mean, she just isn't - her temperament is that of a passive heart - if something bothers her in one way or another she will take it to God and work through it on her own or write you a letter to let you know that in the end she was just having a bad day.  Sydney, our youngest, is sweet and mild mannered and yet has a sarcastic streak about her that is jokingly funny and hintingly hurtful. Although she says things in the moment, she never really means them and in truth I believe she has a "class clown" heart - she is truly heartbroken over the smallest things and doesn't know why people are mean when they shouldn't be. She will be the first to say she's sorry over a small misunderstanding and the first to cry over a big misunderstanding.  My girls, a pea and a bean living in a pod together. They understand each other better than anyone and will say whatever comes to mind to the other without regard for a 'filter'.  Neither are mean at heart and I see them growing away from those that are mean and yet they don't run from them; they are not afraid of those that are mean but do not retaliate mean for mean.

So why are girls so mean? And why does the world/media make girls the meany? Well I don't know - but I know what girls look at - they look at the outer being, the one that says 'look at me'. Girls see the thing that draws their jealous heart to the surface, the thing that is usually hidden from sight. 1 Peter 3:4 "...it should be of that inner self, the unfading beauty of gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight."  I see this inner self in my girls and I'm sure others do too, altho they may not now what it is or what draws them, that is it. An inner self that is for all purposes a quiet and gentle person who has great friends and is kind to those who are not their friends. An inner self that tells all "I am me, that is all I can be, like me or not". I have 2 daughters who could be mean, both are popular in their own way at school and with their crowd, both are without a doubt able to use cutting words to strike at one another, and yet neither are mean at heart. Both are able to smile at the stupid stuff and make people smile when they least want to; both are the unfading beauty that neither see.

Daughters. Growing daughters to beautiful women, how the time passes so quickly. From giggling girls playing hopscotch to teenagers wearing make-up to fit in, to young adults knowing who they are without make-up and without trying to fit in....daughters.  My hope is that in all things they keep their inner beauty, that they keep their sense of humor and yet hold a gentleness that is unmistakable and unhidden.

Write Something

I know what a stupid title huh?! Write something, that's what I came up with - wow the genius!!! But sometimes 'something' is just the thing to write, or sometimes 'nothing' is just the thing to write. And as always, if you don't have something good to say don't say anything at all...right? Well, I disagree; sometimes saying even the not so good things is the something to say.

So now I have the blank page in front of me and I have no idea what it is that I'm suppose to be writing here, so I decided to just start typing. Believe it or not, this is exactly how I started blogging....just typing, with no real purpose. I believe somewhere in this jumbled up mind of mine there is a title to this writing, although right now it is not for any reason being allowed out through my fingers. It is almost as though there is a basket of fruit in my head and none of the fruit matches.  Ha! Now you have to admit that's funny when you think about it, especially from a woman's point of view. I'm sure that most of the women that I know are multi-takers, take on way to much at one time and somehow in the midst of chaos, we seem to get everything we started finished (albeit a month down the road-it's still completed!).  So there it is, something to write about... a fruit basket! (I bet you didn't see that coming!) So, 'what's in your fruit basket?'


I do, as you do too, have a fruit basket of chaos in my head....most of us, willing to admit it or not, do. My basket, well it's been full of things not to productive and more distracting than fulfilling and goal oriented as of late. Its funny how something takes hold and before long I have a plethora of issues controlling my days and nights. This usually happens when I least need it and somewhere along the way I find that more unwanted fruit make it into my basket. One bad apple can ruin the whole bunch! Well, of all the sayings that I steal, I'd have to say this one is true. One bad apple has not only ruined the bunch but created more bad fruit to go along with it! I wonder most days how to battle keeping the bad things that run through my head at bay, how to make them less part of my thinking and I have yet to find an answer. I have yet to get to a place where, when I need something the most, that thing is not provided. When I want to hear something the most, I never really get to hear it. And in times like this, I usually find that I am more apt to dwell on what I need as opposed to what is needed. What do I dwell on? Well, right now its the needs to feel care for, not in the 'take care of me' sense, but the 'are you ok' sense. Does that make sense? And along with that need I have found that there are lots of times in the past when I have met those needs for others and the same has not been returned. The problem with my dwelling here for too long is during this time, those moments of need dredge  up all the other moments that were not provided. Come on! You know exactly what I'm talking about! Women especially, I believe without a shadow of a doubt that we have a memory like an elephant and when one thing sets us off, its not to far off that we will find a connection to a past thing that relates. Almost comforts and confirms the one thing that we least of all need confirming.

So here I am, this basket full of fruit jumbling around in my life and none of it worth eating or sharing. And I wonder, if this is it? If this is what I'm going to deal with for a long time until I can get out of the hole that I am in? Is this the battle that I am stuck in until somewhere in the future a trap door will open and all that bad fruit will just roll out? I highly doubt that will happen but I chose to live with this bad fruit basket or I can chose to have a different one. Gal 5:22-23 "But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." There's a basket of fruit I'd love to have! One that has no law, unlike the basket that I'm dealing with now. I read this today looking for a scripture about peace, this is not what I was looking for! The need for care is something that I miss now and missed growing up. I have always been hard-headed and it has made for me to be something that I'm not...strong.  And in the life that I created, due to circumstances and situations, I have put myself in a position where I show no need for care. I know that in my head but my heart still says that I need it.  So how do I get this basket of fruit, one that will give to others as opposed to giving to myself? I have no idea! But, somewhere in my body dwells the Holy Spirit, I don't know where He is right now, and I am having trouble finding Him, hearing Him, feeling Him, but He's there....albeit somewhere. And with Him there is a place that can take care of all the needs that I have and someday I'll get to find it, someday I'll get to open the trap door and dump all this bad fruit out and be filled up with the fruit that Galatians 5:22 refers too. But, until then, I have to persevere through this storm of bad moments, press through to a place where I don't have a need to feel cared for by a law but a fulfilling of being cared for  and loved because I am.

Write something but what? Maybe the things that are holding me back from Him are the things that I've let myself believe I need from this life. Maybe the things of this life are just that, things. Maybe what I need is something from a place where I refuse to go as oppose to having a problem finding. I don't know the answers but I know that somewhere along the way through this journey of non-stop depression and piling on bad fruit, there is an end. And end with out a law that says 'this is what you need' but an end that writes this on my heart 'I am what you need, I will give you love, joy and peace, I am the goodness and faithfulness that you look for, and I will take care of all your needs.'