Failing Followers: questioning the qualifications {Blogging through the Bible}

For the past few months, I've been hooked on babywearing.

What started as a practical way to snuggle my boy while also getting things done has become something of an obsession. According to my husband, I watch approximately 100 hours of wrapping videos a week. He knows all the terms, too-- cross passes, slack, top rail, tapers, transfers... and he's never even wrapped himself! Sooo maybe I talk about it too much. Haha. I'm hooked! What can I say.

To be honest, I think it's kept me from getting a little stir crazy- learning new ways to tie my wrap and perfecting the carries that I know already has satisfied my need to be intellectually stimulated, and I've found a community of like-minded geeks online. I like it. I like it a lot. I wear my little fellow almost every day, usually in several different carries a day.

And so, when someone asked me if I'd like doing a beginning baby wrapping class at the nearest Guiding Star, I was excited. I really enjoy sharing my passions (ahem, obsessions) with other people. And my husband would probably appreciate it if I talked to someone, anyone, else about figuring out a double hammock tied saltwater.

But as I thought more about it, the insecurities started popping up.

I mean, I've been wrapping for less than a year. I only just started getting back carries figured out. I've only ever wrapped one child (as opposed to folks who "tandem wear"-- or wear two children at one time). Who am I to teach other people??

Failing Followers: misunderstanding greatness {Blogging through the Bible}

I kind of knew that being a mom would be challenging.

I mean, I've been around kids my whole life- I grew up in a relatively large family, my mom did home daycare for a while, I have oodles of nieces and nephews...

But I guess when I thought about being a parent, I didn't really take into account all the things that came with it. Especially after we waited and prayed for this child for five long years... I guess that I somehow thought that after our battle with infertility, I'd come through the flames infinitely patient and wise and even-tempered.

Cut to last night, rocking my freshly bathed little boy to sleep.... I was actually afraid that I was going to literally drop him as my super-angry little overtired rage monster made serious attempts to throw himself out of my arms while screaming at the top of his tiny lungs.

Failing Followers: stagnant in the sacred {Blogging through the Bible}

I was probably about ten on one particular trip home from Grandma's.

My grandparents lived more than two hours away, which, at ten, felt like an eternity. We were getting back late in the evening, our van quiet with my sleeping sisters, and from my seat in the middle of the van, I felt cozy, warm, secure. I was struck by an overwhelming sense of contentment, and as we pulled into our neighborhood, I piped up and asked, to my parents' confusion-- "Can we drive around for a little longer?"

Mark and Messy Disciples: a review so far {Blogging through the Bible}

Have you ever started a project that turned into something much, much bigger than you'd expected?

I have.

In fact, I do it all the time... (for example, refer to my idea of refinishing the wood floors in our house). I start with the idea and I understand the basic concept, but the actual execution is much, much more intense that I expect.

This devotional series in Mark has been no different.

To be honest, when I started exploring the book of Mark, I kind of thought that pointing out the mistakes the disciples made in this book and then how we as Christians make the same mistakes would be somewhat uncomplicated. What I didn't realize was that this series was going to expose me.

Failing Followers: rejecting the hard truths {Blogging through the Bible}

This past Fall, I sat in our little sterile hospital room in the NICU. I'd just woken up from a nap on the makeshift couch-bed that had been my sleeping spot for more than a month, and my little guy snoozed peacefully in his crib, monitors quiet and his little heart rate bouncing happily on the screen.

It had been a long, long journey. I was worn out, tired from waking up every three hours at feeding times, tired because my body was recovering from surgery, tired because even with all the monitors and nurses, I was terrified that my baby would stop breathing, tired because periodic breathing sucks. The night before had been particularly rough- for some reason my poor tiny baby had been throwing up his feedings, spectacular enormous spit ups that didn't seem normal to me at all, and I was worried. I'd changed his little outfit three times overnight because he just kept soaking it.

My phone rang- it was my husband. I answered the call and relished the sound of his voice- I was tired from missing him, too.

"I have some sad news," he said, and I heard my big strong husband's voice catch a little. "Bear died."

Failing Followers: missing the miracle {Blogging through the Bible}

A few years ago, I was walking home from my job in the office of a Bible Camp to find a camper, a middle-school aged child, alone in the parking lot.

My first, split-second reaction was, He's not supposed to be there. Where is his counselor? Chapel started ten minutes ago.

And then I noticed how still he was. He was just standing there, stock-still (not typical for a middle-school boy). His eyes were fixed on a spot just beyond him.

There was a deer, not a hundred yards away, peacefully grazing on the grass at the edge of the gravel parking lot.

Failing Followers: paralyzed by the need {Blogging though the Bible}

In the morning, I wake to the sound of my phone alarm chimes or to my son cooing in his crib next to me. The sunlight streams through the window to my room, and as I greet the day, everything is quiet and calm. It's a far cry from my college years- living in the heart of the city with car horns and sirens breaking the stillness. Back then, there were people who lived just on the other side of a thin wall, or a stone's throw across a dingy alleyway, and now my closest neighbors are almost a mile away (if you don't count the cows).

And yet, the world seems noisier somehow.

Especially this past week.

I open my computer, or turn on my phone, and the peace of my cozy little haven is shattered, crashed in on by the hurt. By the need.

Because our world, my friends? Our world is loud and it is needy.

There is so much hurt.

Failing Followers: forgetting who we follow {Blogging through the Bible}

Working at a Bible Camp was an awesome experience.

Trevor and I both served in outdoor ministry for several years- and we loved it. Even though both of us had behind-the-scenes jobs, we were still plunged head-first into what I'd call "Camp Culture."

You know, campfire songs and their corresponding actions, large group games in which counselors chase children wielding tube socks full of flour. I know that when someone yells, "God is good!" you're supposed to shout, "All the time!" and then they'll say, "All the time!" to which you respond, "God is good!" And I know about ninety million mealtime prayers... all put to song, also with hand motions and lots of clapping.

Failing Followers: the pressure of popularity {Blogging through the Bible}

When I was in middle school, I was painfully aware of who the popular kids were.

There was one girl in particular... I wanted to be her so badly. She wore name brand clothing she bought from the mall, and I wore hand-me-downs from my cousin. Her hair was perfectly blonde and never had fly-aways; mine was always pulled back in a frizzy ponytail. She took dance lessons and moved so gracefully, even playing volleyball in gym class... and I... well, I was the girl who tripped over her own feet and ducked when the volleyball came my way.

But even more than her clothes, her perfect hair, and her grace; I wanted to be known like she was. Everyone at school knew her name. She was famous- well, as famous as a twelve-year-old in a Wisconsin suburb could be.

I spent those three years of my childhood wishing I could be someone I wasn't- looking for just the right shirt at the second hand store, brushing and brushing my hair, joining the school musicals in hope that I could maybe glean just a little bit of that popularity for myself.

Failing Followers: messy discipleship and the Gospel of Mark {Blogging through the Bible}

There are a lot of things I've never done.

There's an old Veggie Tales song called "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything.." and sometimes I feel a lot like I should be an honorary pirate.

I've never licked a spark plug, and I've never sniffed a stinkbug, and I've never painted daises on a big red rubber ball. I've never bathed in yogurt, and I don't look good in leggings, and I've never been to Boston in the fall. 

Of course, none of those things really matter all that much, but there are lots of things I've never done that hit a bit closer to home.

Dirt

"Wouldn't it be nice," he said, looking over the mountain range stretching across the clear blue sky, "if we could get our acreage out here? Like, same set up and buildings, same house, same size, for the same price? And with the same soil, too."

It wasn't the first time I'd heard it.



We're really enjoying this Colorado adventure of ours- interesting jobs, the chance to meet people from all over, the beautiful views- but I do feel a little homesick for our little Iowa acreage.

I love our acreage. The pond, the long pasture grass, worn red barn wood, my yellow kitchen with the original hardwood floors... it's home.



And while I agree that it would be pretty awesome if we could find the same thing out here in Iowa, I can't help but be amused by my husband's way of thinking.

The soil. He'd want the same soil.

You can take the farm boy away from his dirt, but you can't take the dirt out of the mind of the farm boy, I suppose.

And it's just another one of those things that I'm now surprisingly familiar with... the city-girl inside of me shakes her head that I know exactly what he means. Soil is important.

As I write this, I'm looking out the window of our Colorado home, with snow melted away by the unusually warm weather this week, seeing the scrubby tufts of grass and the low lying shrubs in our yard. Nothing like the lush green of back in Iowa-- and it's because of the soil.

It's rocky here- dry, rocky, sandy-colored instead of the dark black richness of back in Iowa.

It makes a difference. There's a reason Iowa farmland produces so much and farms are few here where we are in Colorado. The soil.

Sheep without a Shepherd: Interrupted

If I had to describe my day today in two words, they would be "Constantly Interrupted."

Yep.

Just as soon as I was starting a project, the phone would ring. And then as soon as that call had ended... the phone would ring. In the middle of a super busy check in? Ring, ring, ring.

All. Day. Long.

And for even for someone with a personality like mine (people-pleasing perfectionist), there was only so much I could handle before I started getting seriously grouchy. Couldn't I get just one thing done today?? Why can't people call at convenient times?!?

And unfortunately, my frustration was becoming evident with the way I answered the phones. Short, direct answers, impatience... and it was my husband who called it to my attention.

"Smile," he said. "They can hear your smile through the phone."

I did not want to smile.

I wanted all these people to just leave me alone.