“When will Jed get his real uniform?” I asked my husband Ben.  My fifteen-year-old son Jed joined a newly formed basketball team, and they wore sports pennies over t-shirts for their games.  Pennies are flimsy mesh tank tops that coaches often use at practice to divide their players into two teams or a team may wear pennies during a game if both teams have the same color uniforms.  They are normally ill fitting and don’t stay on well during game play.  So, I was surprised when Ben said, “Actually, the boys have decided they like wearing the pennies. The other teams underestimate them when they show up in the pennies.”  

I found this strategy fascinating.  The other teams thought our boys could not play well because they weren’t dressed out in custom uniforms.  They assumed our team was thrown together haphazardly or spur of the moment.  We appeared like the underdogs as we came onto the court even though that was not necessarily the case.  And our team wanted to capitalize on that impression.  If the other team underestimated us, they might let their guard down.  Then, our guys could take advantage of that, seize the momentum, and gain an early lead.                         

We frequently underestimate ourselves and others.  A few years ago, I was quite content to teach the elementary Sunday School class when my oldest kids, Riley and Jed, gave me an ultimatum of sorts.  They would go to Sunday School without argument if I taught the youth class.  But Riley and Jed didn’t know that I was scared to teach the youth class.  I could handle the younger kids, which included our two youngest boys.  Tell a Bible story, lead them in a craft – I could do that.  I worried that I wouldn’t connect with the youth.  I feared they wouldn’t take me seriously or that I would be too serious for their tastes.  What if they challenged me with faith questions that I couldn’t answer?  All of my own issues with rejection as a teenager flared back up at the prospect of teaching teenagers every week.  Nevertheless, I decided to volunteer to teach the youth.  I ultimately concluded that it was better to teach imperfectly than for my kids to protest against Sunday School attendance.  Of course, the experience of teaching the youth far exceeded my limited expectations.  We learned about our love languages, poverty, and racial injustice to name a few subjects.  Looking back, I realize I’d underestimated myself, the teenage students, and God.  

People underestimated Jesus all of the time.  After Jesus called Philip to become one of his disciples, Philip told his friend Nathanael that Jesus was from Nazareth.  Nathanael replied, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?”  John 1:46.  Jesus wasn’t rich.  He didn’t have clout in society or culture.  He demonstrated servant leadership instead of taking the role of master.  He didn’t attempt to raise an army or seize the reins of power.  Jesus spoke to and spent time with outcasts and those considered low class sinners.  He picked a group of humble day laborers as his disciples.  Jesus didn’t meet the expectations of those who thought the messiah would establish a literal kingdom on earth.  He disappointed his closest friends when he chose not to argue with the authorities who accused him of blasphemy.  He didn’t fight back and accepted an unjust punishment, which led him to the cross.  And yet, by focusing on love and mercy and grace, Jesus established a far reaching and long-lasting movement that still lives and breathes today.    

We’ve been rightly taught not to boast excessively about our accomplishments, but many of us take that lesson to heart and degrade ourselves instead.  We label ourselves as incapable or even worthless.  We don’t think God would ever call us to do anything on God’s behalf.  With our human view of things, we underestimate God’s ability to work in and through us to connect with others, create community, and share God’s love.  

God has always championed the underdog.  We can believe that God wants to use us to build the kingdom on earth.  We may underestimate ourselves and others, but God doesn’t underestimate us.  God never has and never will.  

My eight-year-old son Alex asked to push the cart during a recent trip to Target with me.  I had my reservations, but I agreed.  I kept guiding the cart, but he insisted he could handle it on his own.  I walked ahead when all of a sudden, he slammed the cart into me so that the metal undercarriage hit me hard directly on my ankle bone.  The pain shot through me and almost dropped me to my knees.  Obviously, it was an accident, and Alex immediately apologized.  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.  I didn’t mean to.  I was just trying to catch up.”  For the record, I was only a couple of steps in front of him, but he’d nevertheless felt the need to speed up so that he could keep up. 

We do the same thing sometimes.  We fix our eyes on someone who appears to be ahead of us.  We believe they have a better career, a better family, a better financial situation, a better life.  And once we have them in sight, we rush headlong to try and model ourselves after them.  After a while, we may forget why we chose to chase after these particular people, if we even asked that question in the first place.  We fall into the comparison trap, and we never assess whether our true desires match those we’re trying to catch.  

While we pursue success like we observe others achieving, we may never reach a point where we feel we’ve won the imaginary race.  The people we’re running after probably have no idea that they are setting the pace that dictates our choices.  We don’t slam into them with our efforts.  Instead, when we barrel blindly ahead, we are the ones who usually end up bruised and broken.  We may keep going even when we feel empty and unfulfilled because we think it’s too late to change course.  We may be limping but still we continue to hurt ourselves by running after others.  

But God doesn’t want us to spend our lives chasing after the dreams or success of others.  The Bible references the imagery of running races several times.  In one of those instances, the Bible says, “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”  Hebrews 12:1-2.  We need to train our focus on God and the path that we feel God wants for us to follow.  Not the route others think we should adopt; not the direction the culture recommends; not the one that others establish and we merely mimic.  If we fix our eyes on Jesus and pray for guidance, we can better determine the specific race marked for us and persevere in staying the course.  

God doesn’t want us to merely do what everyone else is doing.  God asks for us to seek Him and then chase the individual lives and dreams He helps us discover.  What a relief that we do not need to be like anyone else, but only who God calls us to be.   

“For the record, I was wrong,” I told my teenage daughter Riley.  We were talking about one of her friends who’d done something that seemed arrogant and self-promoting to me.  But when I casually asked her friend about it in order to confirm my preconceived notions, he explained the sweet and sentimental reasons that motivated him, which were far from boastful.  In that moment, my view changed completely, and I realized I’d once again let my assumptions cloud my judgment.  

I wish this was the first time I’d ever been wrong about someone based on my initial assumptions, but that is simply not the case.  I had a friend that I met at a kids’ activity gym when my oldest children were little.  Based on our surface appearances, we were complete opposites. Her makeup was always flawless and her hair perfectly coiffed – a real life Barbie doll.  I just knew we would have nothing in common.  And I almost let that bias intimidate me and prevent me from getting to know her.  I don’t know how it happened exactly, but we started talking and laughing – a lot.  Every week, we would hang out while the kids played, and she and I had the best time.  We don’t see each other often now because our lives have moved in different directions, but when we run into each other in a store, we hug and catch up.  I think about what I would’ve missed if I’d let my misconceptions prevent me from getting to know her.  I wonder who and what I’ve missed because I didn’t dig deeper to verify the accuracy of my perceptions about others and their actions.

I’ve heard it said that we can’t control the first thoughts that run through our heads, but we are responsible for the thoughts after that.  Do we allow our first assumptions to stand unquestioned or are we open to challenging our original impulses?  Jesus certainly questioned the authorities in power, but he also confronted his friends about their beliefs or lack thereof.  Jesus and his disciples were on a boat when “suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, ‘Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!’  He replied, ‘You of little faith, why are you so afraid?’  Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.”  Matt. 8:23-26.  

The disciples were terrified and had every right to be, but Jesus wouldn’t let them remain in their initial state of fear.  And isn’t fear why we often have the gut reactions that we do?  We may fear not being good enough.  Or we might fear people who seem different from us, and our automatic reaction often is to judge and find fault in order to feel better about ourselves.  But God wants us to challenge our assumptions about people so that we move out of our states of fear and judgment.  God expects us to grow and be open to learning more about others instead of staying stagnant and uninformed.  Think of all we will miss if we don’t.  Think of all of the beauty we may experience if we open our hearts and minds and share our lives with others.  Let us pray for God’s guidance in breaking free of our small mindedness in the way we initially react and finding deeper love instead.   

I didn’t like the way the situation was working out.  I couldn’t control the actors or their actions, but I’d wished, hoped, and prayed – a lot – for a different outcome.  I felt as though the circumstances had created a knot in my heart.  I could physically feel the stress consume me because I kept longing for a particular result even in the face of reality.  I continued to pray and tried to say the words I thought were “right.”  But I finally admitted to God and myself that I wasn’t ready to let go.  I was still holding on to what I wanted to happen with white knuckle determination.  In my journal, which basically consists of my letters to God, I wrote about the grief I felt, and then prayed, “I want help.  At least, I want to want help.  Is that a first step forward?  Please let it be, Lord.”  

Sometimes, the bare minimum we can do is admit that we know we need to adapt, even if we aren’t quite ready to make a move.  God wants to help us better deal with the way life unfolds, but we may not be prepared to accept God’s grace and comfort.  So, we can do the next best thing: confess that we just don’t know what to do or how to pray.  

One of my favorite passages in the Bible says, “Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God.”  Romans 8:26-27 (The Message).  We may be worn out and unsure of how to pray, but God knows.  God takes our deepest sighs, our loudest groans, and our fountain of tears and translates them into the prayers we need.  God is not upset with us for being timid or reluctant or stubborn.  Instead, God knows we become tired while we wait and that we may feel angry or hurt by what the waiting produces.  God can open our hearts and minds so that someday we will see our way through the problems.  Someday, we will be ready to receive all of the transforming power only God can pour into us.  

That day will not necessarily arrive instantaneously.  God’s miracles often develop over time and may be difficult to see clearly until much later.  But we can trust that God is in the process of untangling the knots in our souls slowly but surely.  The pain in my heart did not lessen when I prayed that I wanted to want help.  In fact, the heartache and disappointment grew worse in the immediate days afterward.  But in my desperation, I began to lean on God’s promise that he understood me anyway when I couldn’t find the words or discern the direction I needed to go.  I threw my up hands and said, “you’ve got to do it, God.”  That was all I could do.  And that was enough.             

             

I reached into the refrigerator for the box that the small, individual sized hummus servings came in and found they were all gone.  Of course, this meant that someone in my household took the last hummus and then put the empty box back.  This phenomenon is a baffling part of parenthood.  All of the children put empty boxes, cartons, and containers back on the refrigerator and pantry shelves on a regular basis.  Why?  They could just as easily place the empties on the counter so that I know we are out and need replacements.  Instead, I am left to discover the need at some later point much to my frustration.  Or they could actually tell me that we are out of said snacks, and we could avoid the offending behavior all together.  

Sometimes, I think we resemble the empty containers, tapped out spiritually, emotionally, physically, or mentally.  We feel hollow and vacant.  We have nothing left to offer others or ourselves.  We may suffer from grief, depression, exhaustion, anxiety, or illness.  Whatever the cause, we are left an empty vessel.  

And what do we do with ourselves?  Often, we have a tough time admitting to ourselves that we are lacking or feeling less than.  We minimize our worries.  We decide that it would be selfish to address our own needs.  Or we just don’t feel capable of seeking help.  We ignore our problems and push ourselves to the back of the shelves where no will find us.  

But if we don’t tell anyone we are struggling, no one knows we are empty.  No one will understand that we need attention or care if we suffer in silence.  Even those who are in our closest circles cannot read our minds to know how we are feeling.  The pain will only get worse the longer we remain in isolation.  Our culture signals that feeling down means we are weak.  We often buy into those societal norms adding guilt onto our already fragile feelings.  We respond by withdrawing even more from those who would love to help us if they only knew.   

And while we tend to hide our feelings of despair from other people, we sometimes hide from God as well.  We may be reluctant to pray or seek God’s comfort when we feel hopeless.  But God does not want us to pull away from him ever, but especially when we feel sorrow or are so disconnected that we feel very little at all.  God does not want us to pull away from the people in our lives because we are ashamed.  

In the Bible, apostle Paul, and his assistants, Silas and Timothy, wrote a letter to the church of the Thessalonians in which they describe their relationship with the people of that church.  They said, “Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.”  (1 Thessalonians 2:7-8).  God loves us and does not want us to feel alone.  God places people around us to demonstrate his love and care.  When we feel lost, we need to ask for people to care for us and come along side us so that we can pull out of the difficult circumstances.  And when we find out others are grappling with hard times, we too can share our lives to bring them out of the darkness.     

All of us go through times of trouble when we are stripped bare and feel detached from joy, but we need not remain cut off from others.  We are precious and important to God, and God wants us to seek him and reach out to others so that we can find restoration and replenishment.  

My family loves the Marvel movies centered on the “Guardians of the Galaxy.”  My favorite character is Groot, a tree who moves, fights, and talks.  At least he sort of talks because all he ever says is “I am Groot.”  But Groot uses different intonations when he says, “I am Groot” so that we understand he means different things at different times.  His friend Rocket the Raccoon is the only one who understands what he means in the first movie, and Rocket’s responses inform the audience what Groot actually said.  Rocket knows Groot so well that he knows Groot is communicating more than what his actual words, “I am Groot,” indicate.    

I’ve realized I have my own “I am Groot” phrase.  I find myself saying “I am tired” on a regular basis, either to myself or others.  But I don’t always mean that I am physically exhausted and need a nap.  Sometimes, “I’m tired” is based on my unending worry about a problem and my mind is anxiety ridden.  I might claim that “I’m tired” when I’m actually lonely or isolated.  I sigh, “I’m tired” when I feel weighed down by the turmoil in the news and discord in the world.  And when I say, “I’m tired of it,” I’ve reached my coping limit and things are probably going to get ugly quickly.  At other times, “I’m tired” means I am soul tired and feel distant from God. 

I said, “I am tired” so often that it became like my default slogan.  But I found that I didn’t take the time to dig deeper and find out what was actually underneath my professed tiredness. I didn’t ask myself the real reason I was tired at any given moment.  As such, I didn’t know how to respond to my tiredness.  When I realized what I’d been doing, I learned to pause after “I’m tired” came out of my mouth or ran through my mind.  Maybe I needed that nap after all, or maybe I needed to journal to get my thoughts out of my head and onto paper.  Often, talking to my friends or gathering with my community was the key to restoration.  Sometimes, turning off the news and social media for a while was the road to rejuvenation. 

In all of the circumstances, I needed to pray and seek God’s help with whatever made me feel heavy and off balance.  The Bible says, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.  Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”  1 Peter 5:6-7.  God is with us in the midst of our tiredness, no matter what kind of tiredness it is.  When we seek God, he can lift us up, help us determine the source of our weariness, and guide us in discerning how to curb our fatigue.  All because he loves and cares for us.  

God knows what I really mean when I say, “I am tired” because he knows me so well.  God understands our deepest needs even better than we do.  God can help us better understand ourselves, what we really mean, and what we need to do when we are tired or scared or stressed or feeling any other negative emotion because God wants us to feel seen, known, and most importantly loved. 

We have a new dishwasher, not because we wanted one, but because our old one leaked, destroying our kitchen floor in the process.  We didn’t know how much we depended on a dishwasher until we didn’t have one for six weeks.  We gained a new appreciation for this modern convenience, but I have an issue with the new machine.  I haven’t figured out how to arrange the dishes and cups yet.  While the dishwasher is basically the same as the old one, the prongs differ just enough that my previous methods of arranging the various lunch containers, water bottles, and glasses don’t quite work.  I’ll learn to adjust eventually, but in the meantime, I find myself frustrated on a daily basis.

So often, our lives change, not necessarily because we want them to change, but because that’s simply how life works.  The changes may not be drastic or major.  Maybe it’s just a new schedule or a slightly different set of circumstances.  We may think the changes shouldn’t affect us so much because they aren’t that big, but the little things can certainly throw us for a loop too.  The adjustments may take longer or feel more daunting than we anticipated.  But we believe we should handle the small stuff without difficulty even though that’s not always the case.  And when we face those minor challenges, we may think that we shouldn’t bother God with such things when there are so many other, greater troubles in the world.  

One of my all-time favorite Bible verses is familiar to many: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight.  In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6 (NRSV).  To me, God is saying he wants to know everything that bothers us, makes us feel unbalanced, or throws us off kilter.  We need to bring all of ourselves and every last one of our concerns to God.  I’ve realized that if I’m filtering what issues I bring to God because I don’t think they’re significant enough, I’m not acknowledging God in all ways.  Instead, I’m relying on my own insight to determine my actions, including the decision not to communicate openly and honestly with God.  God wants a relationship with us in which we tell God all the ways in which we feel lacking or that we’re coming up short.  God does not want us to hide from him because we think we should handle things with more ease.   

If we invite God into the everyday situations in life, sharing everything with God, he will help us straighten out the problems we’re facing.  God can help us see things more clearly and react more calmly.  Or God can provide comfort when we simply have to grit our teeth to get through the changing terrain of life.  When we look to God for guidance instead of relying on ourselves, our trust in God will grow, which will ultimately make our relationship with God stronger and deeper.              

I love a photo of my daughter Riley that she took of herself several years ago, but it’s not a normal selfie.  She is looking into the mirror with her arms outstretched above her head so that she can take a picture of the back of her hair.  Dressed in her dance leotard, she checks to see how her dance bun looks before she goes to dance class.  Thankfully, she’s been putting up her own hair for dance for a long time.  When she was little, I couldn’t figure out how to put a bun in her hair without using a bun maker in which we pulled her ponytail through a hole and then wrapped it around a circular, spongy circle.  But Riley now easily puts her hair up with braids and twists and dozens of bobby pins, and her hair looks amazing every time.  

To me, the most interesting part of this photo, though, is not that Riley’s bun looks pretty, but the look on her face.  She is staring into the mirror with steely determination.  One of her eyebrows is cocked and her eyes are narrowed.  She appears resolved and tough but beautiful at the same time – a perfect combination of grit and grace.  

This weekend, Riley and her dance friends return to the stage for their spring recital.  Last year, the pandemic caused the cancellation of their normal recital.  Instead, they performed at their respective homes while on a Zoom call together.  It was not ideal, but the best they could do at the time.  

Throughout this dance season, the girls learned to dance in person with masks on and to socially distance from one another while still dancing together.  They’ve shown depth of determination while continuing to grow their skills and passion.  Their dance teachers, Julie, Kayla, Amanda, Carla, DeeDee, and Sarah, showed incredible diligence and leadership in adapting to the circumstances and guiding the girls in uncharted territory.  

The daily grind of dancing challenged them both physically and emotionally.  Dancers thrive on performing and, without that opportunity, may struggle to show up every day with enthusiasm and focus.  And while their time in dance class brought some normalcy to their lives, it also reminded them that the world was anything but normal as they faced uncertainty and adversity.   

In Isaiah, a speaker proclaims to the people, “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me . . . to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” (Isaiah 61:1 & 3).  All of us, including the dancers, will wear face masks this weekend, but the dancers will return to the stage with their hair high on their heads, their makeup carefully applied, wearing their new costumes.  We celebrate this time for our dancers and teachers because they’ve come so far.  All of us feel as though we are rising from the ashes, having endured a time of great difficulty.  Nothing is perfect or completely normal yet, but we are looking forward and believing in the future with a sense of hope.   

When the dancers perform this weekend, we will certainly enjoy the beauty of their dances.  But, knowing how hard they’ve worked in this crazy year, will make the shows even more special.  Both dancers and teachers fought with intense grit to bring forth the grace that lived inside of them.  And we can thank God for bringing beauty from the ashes.      

Recently, my right pointer finger started aching.  Immediately, I thought about the time when Ben, his mother, and I were working in the yard of our first home in St. Louis almost twenty years ago.  The gorgeous spring day turned a bit darker when I accidentally hurt my pointer finger with an electric hedge trimmer.  The blade didn’t actually cut me.  Somehow my finger wedged in place on the machine so that the back-and-forth motion squeezed my finger and made a gash the shape of a V that bled like crazy.  We discussed the possibility of stitches but decided against it.  Healing took a long time, and my injured finger felt tender for even longer.  

When my finger began hurting again the other day, I thought it couldn’t still be sensitive after all these years.  Then, I questioned whether the original injury had actually occurred on my right hand or my left hand.  I examined both fingers.  The scar had faded to the point that I couldn’t say for sure which finger had been hurt so long ago.  I don’t think my current finger ache is related directly to the old wound.  But that doesn’t matter because the new situation brought back the memory of the old pain.  Isn’t that how it works oftentimes?  The new life circumstances are not connected to the old emotional wounds, but the new brings the old to the surface.  

I’ve encountered this more over the past year than I ever expected.  My daughter Riley is seventeen, and some of her teenage dilemmas have brought up negative emotions for me that I never anticipated.  Because I’ve feared that she might experience some of the same pain and rejection I experienced, I’ve been drawn back to what happened to me a long, long time ago as a teenager and young adult.  I was surprised that those old wounds were still so tender and hurtful to me even now.  I thought I’d processed those previous issues and had matured to the point where those memories wouldn’t cause pain anymore.  I was wrong.  

I dealt with a lot of internal strife trying to help my child navigate her own circumstances while I relived some of my old emotional injuries.  I felt embarrassed and ashamed that new situations conjured such old emotions, humiliated that I was so easily susceptible to previous hurts and slights.  I’m convinced, however, that those feelings of worthlessness did not come from God.  In the Psalms, David said, “No one who hopes in you will ever be put to shame.”  (Psalm 25:3). Then, David prayed, “Guard my life and rescue me; do not let me be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.” (Psalm 25:21).  God only wants to help us in our times of despair.  We should seek God’s help in healing our emotional pain, regardless of when that pain originated.  And God does not want us to devalue ourselves more or soak in a pool of shame because we haven’t fixed the problems already. 

When we encounter old pain that we thought we’d dismissed, let us take refuge in God.  Let us put our hope in God’s promises of love and comfort and let go of the shame that we impose on ourselves.  God does not want us to feel worse but better.  We may have to process our pain over and over before we can move on from the hurt, but God will help us every single time.        

Our eight-year-old son Alex is an extremely picky eater.  And when I say picky, I mean there are only a few foods he willingly eats.  He does not try new food items without a major argument.  Mealtimes can be a struggle to say the least.  Vacations can be tough because it’s not always easy to find restaurants that serve the correct kind of chicken tenders (not too crispy) or pizza (thin crust only).  On our recent trip to New Orleans, we lucked out and stumbled upon some restaurants where Alex actually ate.  We told him we were proud of his effort.  I guess he took that to heart because when we arrived back home, he told us he thought he’d done a good job eating while on vacation.  Then, he said, “I think it’s a sign of growth.”   He left the room, and Ben and I laughed.  What kid says that?

I’ve been thinking about his pronouncement.  Believe me, Alex’s issues with food are not resolved.  He refused to even take one bite of pizza the other night because it was too doughy.  But he decided that eating well for one week was enough to proclaim victory.  He chose to see himself in a positive light even in a situation that routinely challenges him. 

I tend to shrug off small steps forward.  I frequently focus on the negatives in any given situation.  I dismiss most any type of advance that is less than a complete and total win.  I don’t give myself credit if the job is well done but unfinished.  This approach can stunt my emotional and spiritual growth. 

For example, I love the music and the sentiment of the song “I Surrender All.”  The lyrics begin with “All to Jesus I surrender.  All to Him I freely give.”  I know that while total trust and surrender to God may be the goal, I will never achieve it.  I will never reach a point where I can definitively say that I’ve surrendered every aspect of my life to Jesus.  Do I hope to trust God completely someday?  Of course.  But knowing myself, I know that will not be my reality no matter how much I pray or try.  So, most of the time when I hear that song, I just feel like a failure.  

But I have a set of inspirational cards called “The Universe Has Your Back” by Gabrielle Bernstein.  Recently, I turned over a card that said, “When I think I’ve surrendered, I surrender more.”  I thought, yes – I can do that.  I can always try to move toward God.  I will not reach perfection, but I can be faithful in my effort to trust a little more every day.  

God doesn’t look at us in disgust when we fall short in our faith.  Instead, I’m convinced that God sees us trying to trust, to surrender, to be more like Jesus and is pleased.  God celebrates the small steps just like Alex did.  God looks at us with love and says, “I think it’s a sign of growth.”