My thirteen-year-old son Clay and I ran up to his school to pick up some supplies a couple of days before school started when we encountered a staff member who has worked there the entire time Clay has been in middle school. Afterward, I grumbled a bit to Clay, regurgitating my disappointments with some of the decisions this person has made. And when we got back home, my older son Jed piled on with his complaints. This is the beginning of my eighth year with a child at this school, and Jed was there both before and after the arrival of this person. We thought things were better before. Then, Clay said, “She seems nice. I think she just has a hard job.”  

Ouch! Clay put me in my place. I told him I would try to have a better attitude. I realized that perhaps Jed and I were not being fair because we were comparing this person to her predecessor whom we’d both liked a lot. All we could see were the ways this person didn’t perform like the previous person. And even though I stand by my conviction that carpool doesn’t work as well these days, I know I haven’t looked for the positive in this person. All I could see were the ways she didn’t measure up to the past in my perception. I didn’t give her a chance. And I probably omitted any of the former staff member’s foibles from my memory. 

We do that sometimes with people, places, and times. The past becomes nostalgic while the present becomes problematic in comparison. True, we can learn a lot from history, our own and that of our communities. If we dare to take a hard, truthful look at the past, we may avoid repeating the difficult parts. But if we merely glorify what has been without recalling the entirety of the past, the good and bad, we may get stuck in a past that never actually existed in the first place. All to the detriment of today.  

If we never give new people a chance because they are merely different, then we are doing ourselves a disservice. We may miss out on the good that others can provide. We need to give relationships with new people a chance on their own merit, not dismiss them out of hand because we are caught in the comparison trap. We can make an intentional effort to open our minds and hearts so that we experience the kindness, love, and positive traits of others who are new to our lives. 

And we should be careful how we talk about the past versus the present. Constantly repeating the shortcomings of someone who is new to a role as compared to the person who held it before is often an effort to pull others to our way of thinking. I was guilty of that in this circumstance because I was trying to influence Clay’s opinion. I didn’t even consciously think it through at the time, but I now know that I wanted Clay to feel the same way as me. Thankfully, Clay had enough insight to hold his ground and remain on the side of kindness. 

A day after Clay corrected my behavior, I encountered a similar situation. A new person in a role vacated by someone who’d been a favorite. But this time, I caught myself feeling edgy toward the new person. Instead of continuing to build up a wall to keep the new person out, I took a breath and asked the person to repeat her name. She said, “I’m new.” That’s right, new and altogether deserving of welcome. 

A pair of doves has built a nest in our garage. We repeatedly tried to shoo them out until we realized they’d already managed to construct the nest and laid an egg. We then started to support them by leaving the garage open a crack and putting out a small bowl of water. They are vigilant. One of them is always sitting on the nest guarding and incubating the egg. 

When I was pregnant with each of my children, I felt such relief and excitement on the first day of the month in which they were due. We’d made it. The delivery date was in sight. All the months of waiting and worrying were about to pay off. The baby was about to arrive, and our family would change forever. Those memories came flooding back when the calendar rolled over to August 1 this year.  This month, my oldest child, and only daughter, Riley will start college over eight hundred miles away from home. The anticipation of her absence is hard at times. I now truly know the meaning of bittersweet.

I had a little meltdown the other day, and by little meltdown, I mean sobbing uncontrollably for about an hour. I was talking to my therapist when I realized that I’d been attempting to wall off my emotions. If I could avoid thinking about it, I could avoid the feelings.  But that’s not how emotions work – if we don’t let them out, they fester inside of us. When the wall finally came tumbling down, the tears and sadness rushed in with overwhelming force. I felt better after my crying episode. I’m not suggesting I won’t cry more because I know I will, but I think I moved a little closer to acceptance after that emotional release and the acknowledgement that I was in denial.   

While I’m sad Riley is leaving, I’m also proud of her. This is exactly what Ben and I raised her to do. All the waiting and worrying is about to pay off. Her launch date is in sight. She is ready. My girl is independent and disciplined. She worked so hard in high school in both academics and dance. Her potential is limitless. She is about to embark on an amazing adventure. And I need her to know that I am happy for her. That we are cheering for her. That we believe in her. I don’t want to hold her back in any way. I especially don’t want her worried about me. This is the right thing and the right time for her. 

Obviously, the dynamics of our home life will change as she ventures out on her own. Thankfully, I’ll still have my boys at home to keep me busy. Although I’m warning my friends, if I start making crude and off-color jokes on a regular basis after being surrounded by boys all the time, please take me on a girls’ night out. 

My bird friends are still waiting. After the bird hatches, they’ll have to raise the baby until it is mature enough to fly away. The metaphor is not lost on me. We’ve spent the last eighteen years on a similar journey. I can’t keep my daughter in my nest forever. Through the tears, I’ll celebrate her accomplishments and wait with anticipation to see all of the wonderful things she experiences. My baby is ready to fly, and I believe she will soar. 

My favorite nurse is leaving my doctor’s office to attend medical school. I’m happy for him but sad too. He has always been so upbeat and supportive of my family, and he responds to calls and questions quickly and thoroughly. I visit their office on a regular basis to manage my asthma, so I’ve followed his journey to med school for a while now. I’m going to miss him. After we saw him last week and I hugged him goodbye, I thought: I’ll pray for him. And then I questioned myself, who am I to pray for him? I only know him professionally, not personally. To me, it felt like that moment you see an acquaintance out and about, and you think you should say hello, but then you don’t know if they’ll even remember you. And you must decide whether to approach the person and risk embarrassment or stay silent and avoid the encounter. Maybe I was overstepping my place to pray for him. 

I realized that I don’t question praying for those whom I know well, and I don’t think twice about praying for nameless, often faceless people, like those caught up in disasters or war. But when I didn’t know how I fit into the life of someone that I knew, but didn’t know well, I felt timid. Then, almost immediately, I felt God tell me I was being ridiculous. Why would I ever hold back a prayer? Especially if my reticence stemmed from my own insecurities. First of all, I hadn’t even told my nurse friend of my plan to pray for him, so I couldn’t actually feel embarrassed. And, it’s not like we can only offer a set number of prayers to God a week. God asks us to pray without ceasing, not to limit our prayers. I realized I filtered my prayers through an arbitrary and unnecessary thought process.

Instead of trusting God that my prayers were valid no matter my significance in another’s life, I let fear stand in the way. Praying for others allows us to support and encourage them. We ask God to comfort or care for them. That they will feel God’s presence in difficulty or in everyday circumstances. By choosing not to pray because of my misguided concerns, I was being stingy with prayer. My initial impulse was to speak words of concern for another, but my reluctance meant I did the exact opposite – I ended up caring about myself more than them. I didn’t want to feel unworthy, so I almost decided to shut down instead. As if God would ever say, why in the world is she praying for that person when she doesn’t even know them that well? God is love and welcomes every word we speak in love on another’s behalf. 

I believe that when people cross our minds, we offer a sufficient prayer when we simply say “God, be with them.” And then maybe if we can, reach out, send the text, make the call, to tell them we’re thinking about them. But if we can’t because we don’t know them that well, let’s pray for them anyway.  

We were sitting around my parents’ kitchen table catching up with my nieces on a recent visit. My daughter Riley asked the seven-year-old where she liked to eat when she was on vacation at the beach in Florida. She listed a couple of places then turned to her older sister and with perfect comedic timing and a pinch of sass said, “help me here, Sis.” My oldest niece smiled and provided the names of additional restaurants. Riley and I glanced at each other as we held back our laughter. This girl has spirit and spunk and none of us want to squelch that. 

But as I thought more about our conversation, I realized what my niece had accomplished with her adorable little quip. In one fell swoop, she’d invited another person to participate in the conversation and asked for help at the exact same time. She’d done it in such a casual and comfortable manner, though, I almost missed the significance of her statement.

Most of us don’t ask for help so easily. Instead, we worry that people will think less of us if we ask for help. We often berate ourselves for our inability to handle all of life’s circumstances on our own. We fear people’s judgment. We want to hide our troubles to avoid potential shame. We may even decide to suffer in silence because we feel weak at the prospect of reaching out to another and anxious about being vulnerable in front of others. But we need to normalize asking for help. To make it a more common occurrence because who doesn’t need some help on a regular basis? 

I saw a friend at Target the other day, and she shared some difficult information about challenges facing her family. We talked for a while about the range of emotions that she and children might experience. And at the end of the conversation, I said what many of us often do: “let me know if you need anything.” Most of the time, when presented with that statement, we say we will call if we need something but know we won’t. This time, my friend said, “that dinner we talked about having might be good.” We’d previously discussed having dinner sometime in the future but didn’t have solid plans. In that moment, though, she achieved the same thing my niece had. She invited me to help and gave me a concrete opportunity to do so. The more I thought about her response, the more I admired her for it. She’d shown vulnerability in what she’d shared then offered me a way to be present with her.

Maybe that is one path to normalize asking for and receiving help. When someone asks us what we need, we actually tell them. Even if no one can fix things for us, they can probably go for a cup of coffee. People want to help us when we are in need. Let’s learn to ask for help in specific ways. And in turn, we can show them that the next time they need help, it’s okay to ask because we’ll be there for them too.  

Lately, I’ve found that my writing has fallen under the influence of the heaviness of the world. Even though I’ve chosen not to follow the 24-hour news cycle for the most part, I cannot avoid feeling as though the world is messy and a bit heartbreaking right now. Instead of dwelling on the harsh realities of our current collective lives today though, I’m going to share a scene of pure joy I witnessed recently. 

I was at the pool with my youngest son Alex. He’d been jumping off the diving board, so that’s where my attention was focused when I saw a little boy about three-years-old ready to take his turn jumping into the water where his father waited in the deep end. As expected, he was dressed in the uniform of young children: long sleeve swim shirt, swim trunks, and a floatie contraption that covered the top part of his chest in addition to both arms. But completely unexpected was his approach to the jump. He strutted out to the end of the board pumping his arms and keeping time to the music blaring overhead. 

I was completely caught off guard and totally mesmerized at the same time. Would he do it again when he had another turn? Yes, in fact, he did it every time. I started laughing and the woman in the row of lounge chairs behind me laughed too. I finally pulled out my phone to video this kid, knowing I couldn’t share it because I didn’t know this boy or his family, but just to have it because he was a perfect example of happiness. In that particular take, he danced out to “This is How We Do It,” which fit perfectly with his exuberance.

Now, I know this little guy didn’t have any worries in the world. He’s living his best life. His main concerns probably revolve around snacks, playtime, and naps. But even still, I couldn’t help but admire the way he lived in the moment and enjoyed himself in the process. He didn’t care that we were watching him. In fact, he was so into the experience he had no idea he was garnering the crowd’s attention. 

I’m self-aware enough to understand that I’m not going to start suddenly living with the happy abandon of that little boy. I’m serious by nature, and it’s hard for me to throw off my inhibitions. You’re never going to catch me dancing down the diving board (literally or metaphorically) – and I doubt I would’ve as a child either. But here was my take-away that day: I need to look for the joy around me. No matter how that joy manifests itself. 

It’s easy to get stuck in the mire of life, so we actively need to watch for any small moments of joy. We can celebrate those people and occurrences that make us smile. Instead of quickly dismissing the small joys so we can get back to the business of life, let’s relish them in order to buoy us as we journey through the weighty world. At the end of the video of the little boy, I can hear myself laughing. I need to do more of that. We all do. 

My eighteen-year-old daughter Riley was out of town when she called to check in with me and sweetly asked, “How are you, Mom?” I replied, “I’m fine.” Without missing a beat, she said, “are you good-fine or bad-fine?” On that day, I was neutral-fine, but Riley was right about the word “fine” because it can express a wide gamut of emotion. A few days later, my husband Ben and I were having a slight disagreement when I said, “it’s fine!” Seeing my face and hearing my tone he responded, “it’s not fine.” Obviously, I’d used the term in the passive aggressive manner. Thankfully, it didn’t take long for me to become fine as we resolved the issue. But the range between good-fine and bad-fine is wide and can also include the “I don’t want to talk about it-fine.” Sometimes the emotion is too great to discuss or we’re just tired of dwelling on hard circumstances. Lately, I’ve felt like I’m trending toward “fake-fine” or “not fine at all actually” because the state of the world feels so heavy to me right now. And with that, hope starts to wane as well. 

In Psalm 27, David appears to experience the spectrum of emotions associated with “fine.”  At the beginning of the chapter, David states that the Lord is “my light and my salvation,” and “the stronghold of my life – of whom shall I be afraid?” He proclaims that God would protect him from his enemies who sought to devour him. Then, David seems concerned because he asks the Lord to keep him close “in the house of the Lord” so that the Lord can continue to protect him. But David descends into doubt a few verses later. He begs the Lord to “hear my voice when I call”; “do not turn your servant away”; “do not reject me or forsake me”; “do not turn me over to the desire of my foes.” Maybe David wanted to convince himself that everything was fine when he started writing but finally broke down and told God the truth – he wasn’t really fine. He feared the people who might harm him and that God wouldn’t be there for him when the world spun out of control. 

David’s honesty is one of the hallmarks of his writing. He knows he needs God, but he is not always certain that God will help. I think we’ve all experienced those feelings. Like David, we may try to tell ourselves that we’re fine, but sometimes we experience those brutal moments when we wonder if God is listening, unsure if we are all alone in our hopelessness. We see our lives or our world in a tailspin, and we question God’s presence or plan. David shows us that our feelings of despair are normal and common to everyone. 

In the last two verses, though, David reaches down deep to find hope. He says, “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” It’s hard to hang onto hope. It’s hard to wait. It’s hard to see God’s goodness when things look bleak. But we can follow David’s example of honesty with God and declare our expectation that God will show up – sooner, rather than later, in our current lives, in today’s world. That we cling to the belief that God’s goodness still exists.

God also expects us to be part of that demonstration of goodness. Waiting does not mean we passively sit on our hands and do nothing. We need not ignore the wrongs and injustices we witness. We may have to work to dismantle systems that harm and oppress. We can speak out and tell others that God’s ways bring peace and love, not hate and violence. We can act in concert with God to bring about God’s goodness. We can help make things better than they are now even as we wait for more change.

We may not feel fine with how things are right now. But let us hang onto hope that God still works in the world today and remain confident that we can play an active part in bringing about God’s goodness.  

Throughout the spring and early summer, a song stalked me. The song that followed me was “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals. The song came on the radio when I was driving, not once a day, but multiple times a day whenever I got in the car. Every. Single. Time. My sons noticed the phenomenon and would say, “there’s your song” when it started playing the first line, “Sometimes, all I think about is you.” It became so repetitive I started to wonder if I needed to learn something from the song. Was it trying to tell me something?

The other day, I felt overwhelmed with worry about three of my four kids. They were still at camp, and one of them wasn’t feeling well physically, one was traveling back to camp from Colorado on a long bus trip, and one had heard some information, that if true, would be very disappointing, hurtful even. Thankfully, one child was all good. I found myself spiraling with anxiety. I just wanted my babies to be safe, healthy, and happy, and I couldn’t talk to or hug them. Not knowing how they were handling their situations was excruciating. 

I was in a drive-thru line when the song came on for the second time that day. The song is about a relationship that is not going to survive and the pain that both people are suffering. The singer realizes they can’t make each other happy, but he laments his inability to do so. In one line, he says, “I just wonder what you’re dreaming of / When you sleep and smile so comfortable / I just wish that I could give you that / That look that’s perfectly un-sad.” While the song is about a romance, I can’t help but relate to it as a parent because I desperately wish I had the power to make my kids “perfectly un-sad.” Not just on the day in question, but all the time. Every. Single. Time.

I wish I could deflect all pain and rejection from their lives. But as they get older, I know I have little to no control over their daily lives, and I hate that. I despise that helpless feeling. I can give them advice that they might accept or not; I can pray for them; I can encourage them to get rest, hydrate, and avoid stress, but I can’t make them do a whole lot. And I can’t make the people with whom they interact do anything. Even though these observations make sense intellectually, I struggle to accept them emotionally. My heart hurts when my kids hurt or face struggle. My brain becomes distracted and preoccupied. I struggle until I know they are safe or feel better, physically, mentally, or emotionally.

I don’t have a cure for the challenges of parenthood. No one does. To love our kids is to care deeply about their lives and wish we could protect them from all hardship. But I guess all we can do is stay available for our kids – to absorb some of the hurt, to hold them when they cry, to let them know we are on their team always and forever even when we cannot be together in person. And to make sure they know we think of them constantly. Kind of like the song that plays over and over when I’m in my car – we can be there in the background when they need us even though we may experience pain along with them. Every. Single. Time. 

I felt scattered. I woke up and the anxiety started almost immediately. I needed to write, but I couldn’t focus and didn’t think I had any good ideas. So, I decided to clean the house a little bit because I needed to be productive. I picked up a scrap piece of paper with some notes that I’d jotted down for a previous writing piece. I intended to throw it out when I noticed a reference to the Bible story about Zacchaeus that hadn’t made it into the earlier writing. And that got me thinking. 

Jesus was passing through Jericho. Zacchaeus was the wealthy chief tax collector and considered a sinner by the people. “He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.” I imagine that Zacchaeus felt pretty scattered that day. He knew he wasn’t popular with the people, and yet he wanted to see this man who stirred the interest and admiration of the people. He ran ahead of everyone and then shimmied up a tree because he knew he had no chance to see Jesus if he didn’t. I bet he didn’t climb trees very often. I can see him breathing hard, the sweat dripping off him, possibly scraped and bruised, feet slipping, hanging on as best he could. Completely uncomfortable and awkward. Despite his short stature, he probably felt even smaller emotionally in those minutes waiting for Jesus too. 

And then Jesus arrived and approached the tree. I’ve always assumed that Zacchaeus would be thrilled that Jesus noticed him, but I wonder if at first, he was scared. Did the adrenaline of fear shoot through his body? He knew he’d cheated people out of money. Would this man Jesus, whom the people loved, condemn him, call him out, turn the crowd against him while he was trapped up in the tree?

But then Jesus “looked up and said, ‘Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.’ So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.” After his encounter with Jesus, Zacchaeus gladly offered to give half of his possessions to the poor and repay those he’d cheated with four times the amount. Jesus told everyone that salvation had come to Zacchaeus’ house that day. Jesus declared that he “came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:1-10).

When Zacchaeus was scattered and lost, Jesus told him to come down out of his precarious position, get out of his own head, and ground himself in the presence of Jesus. I think God calls us to do the same. And yet, sometimes, when I’m feeling scattered, I do almost everything else before I pray about the situation. When I stop and realize I need to tell God about my state of anxiety, God begins the process of centering me, bringing my focus back to God. I usually find I become the most grounded when I write out my prayers. I always have a journal at the ready and pour out my thoughts and emotions to God in letter form. When I empty myself on the page, it’s as if Jesus stands at the foot of the metaphorical tree I’ve climbed up and tells me, “Come down immediately, look at me, calm down, let’s figure it out.” 

God sees us. God seeks and saves the lost and the anxious. Let us ground ourselves with God in prayer when we feel scattered. God will meet us where we are and help us regain our footing.

My kids are living their best lives at summer camp for the next three weeks. My husband Ben attended this same camp as a child, and we’ve had a camper there for ten years running now. They absolutely love their time at camp because they can just be themselves and have fun. But, I didn’t know that children could love camp the way they do until I experienced it through them. When I was a kid, I didn’t go to summer camp like the one Ben and the kids attend. I only went to “nerd camps” in high school as my husband dubbed my academic camps. I was a homebody and didn’t want to go away in the summers. I also thought that rich people sent their kids away to summer camp for weeks because they didn’t want them at home. I’m not sure where my belief came from other than perhaps television or movies. I didn’t actually know people who’d go away to camp for weeks at a time, so my assumption remained until I met Ben. He told me how much he loved camp but really my misperception only fully dissipated when I realized that the weeks at camp are the happiest of my kids’ whole year.

This illusion about camp was not the first time I’d found myself believing something that was inaccurate or incomplete. When I was a freshman in college, I told my professor that I was going to write my paper on how the feminist movement had accomplished its goals because everything was equal now. Thankfully, she didn’t laugh in my face but told me to do my research and let her know what I thought. I was incensed when I learned that women were paid much less than men for the same jobs and other stark inequalities. Let’s just say my research paper was much different than what I’d initially imagined. A similar situation unfolded in my African American Politics class later in college. I heard a young Black man describe how he’d been followed around a store for no reason other than the clerk’s unfounded fear he would shoplift. I’d grown up going to school with children of color, but I’d never heard them talk about how people treated them based on the color of their skin. I’d never asked. I didn’t even know to ask. But in that class, that day, my eyes and ears were opened. And they can’t be closed again.

In law school, I met students who were openly part of the LGBTQ+ community. In college, there were rumors about some people being gay or lesbian, but in a southern school thirty years ago, LGBTQ+ students lived in the closet, not freely, not as themselves. In addition to meeting friends who were in the LGBTQ+ community at school and in the workplace, Ben and I started attending a Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), and I found out that the Bible was not as black and white as I’d thought about certain subjects either. I never knew churches could be welcoming and affirming before then and had no clue there were several other progressive denominations that were aligned. Now, we still belong to the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), and our local church is welcoming and affirming. We won’t settle for less.  

When we listen to and ask questions about others’ experiences, we leave room for understanding and growth. We cannot assume we know what other people go through. We can change based on what we learn. We need not cling to beliefs we’ve held for a long time if we find those beliefs are inaccurate. Being open to others, allowing them to tell their truths, and truly listening, demonstrates love, our own and God’s. 

Over the last few years, I’ve loved celebrating some of my friends’ milestone birthdays. I’ve traveled to Las Vegas; Fredericksburg, Texas; and last weekend – Oceanside, California. My friend’s husband planned her entire 50^th birthday surprise – all we needed to do was get to California. I admit I was a little nervous because I hadn’t seen some of these friends that I’d originally met in St. Louis for around ten years. Several of us had moved to different states and that made staying in touch more difficult. But my worries vanished immediately upon arrival. We fell back into a comfortable rhythm as though no time had passed. We ate good food, laughed a lot, watched the ocean, and talked incessantly. By the end of the short trip, we felt reconnected and full of love from our time together. 

In the oft-quoted Psalm 23, the author wrote, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul.” (Psalms 23:1-3)(NRSV). The Psalmist doesn’t specify how God restores our souls though. Some obvious church-related ways are through prayer and worship. Watching the vast ocean or spending time in nature reminds us of the power of God’s creation and soothes our spirits. 

But I think God’s restoration is more varied than what we realize. And much of that restoration occurs through our relationships with other people. God made us for community. Spending quality time with family or friends feeds the soul. Meeting someone for coffee or a meal helps us feel more connected to them and ourselves. When we can walk away from a conversation feeling more whole and complete, we experience restoration. When our child or a friend gives us a hug, we can regain our sense of self and feel God’s love too. 

God’s restoration can occur in the quiet, small, ordinary moments of life too. The Message version of the Bible translates Psalm 23 to God, “you let me catch my breath.” (The Message). When we nap, read a book, or take a drive to clear our heads, we stop, slow down, and ease our anxiety. God doesn’t need us to stress ourselves out to exhaustion and depletion. God wants to be our companion, and if we are constantly rushing, we don’t leave room in our days to spend time in relationship with God, others, or ourselves. 

In another version of the Bible, Psalm 23 says, God “refreshes my soul.” (NIV). To me refreshment should happen over and over. And I think that applies to our souls as well. God doesn’t promise that our entire beings will be refreshed all at once and remain that way forevermore. Instead, I see refreshment as a process that occurs bit by bit and is continual and constant. This past weekend reminded me of that. We left our time together with the realization that we’d missed one another. All of us expressed a desire to stay in contact more regularly, even if it was just a text with a small update on an event of the day. We decided that the weekend had afforded us a priceless opportunity to catch up and we wanted to be more intentional and build on our momentum going forward. Refresh and repeat. 

God is always willing and ready to refresh us. God wants us to feel the love and peace that only God can provide, but we may receive our soul-healing over time, in a variety of ways, and often from other people. Taking a moment to catch our breath can be a gift from God. Let us be glad and give thanks to the One who restores our souls.