The only thing that counts

A year ago, I made a friend at an evening church program. She was a beautiful, strong mother of five kids, one only a few weeks old. She was witty and warm, undeterred by my pitiful, awkward small talk. We had two hours to burn and so we sat on the sofa in the foyer, sharing space. We were both in the process of looking for a church–she, because her previous church was splitting up, and we were looking because we’d just moved to the area. I made a comment on how hard it is when things change and you have a bunch of kids in the midst.
“I just enrolled my kids in our local public school,” I  confessed, “and we homeschooled last year. Who knows how this year will go!” 

 “I homeschool my kids,” she said. “It’s really hard with the spread in ages. My big girls do great, but getting my ten year old boy to do his work is like pulling teeth. He screams and cries and has major meltdowns. I’m afraid he’s going to hate me.” Then she paused and said, “I wish someone could tell me it would all be okay if I just put him in public school.”

As I drove home that night, I couldn’t get her off my mind. When I homeschooled, I was constantly overwhelmed. Was it the three boys who circled like yapping puppies, never settling down? The baby who didn’t sleep through the night? Was it a lack of spousal support, the threatening feeling of no personal boundaries? My futile attempts at keeping things orderly? I was forever spinning my wheels and making no traction. Burned out emotionally, I was irritated when asked to teach Sunday school, too overstimulated to be gentle with anyone but myself. I was wedged between the most unforgiving rocks–expectation and obligation–and it was crushing me. Trapped. I was desperately trying to survive and secretly considering if I ought to cut my arm off Aron Ralston-style, just so I could escape.

Homeschooling friends would pat me on the back, nod knowingly. But I don’t think they knew. I don’t think they’d felt that way.

And I think my new friend was trying to tell me she was caught between the rocks.
I wish I’d stayed to help dig her out, to listen better as she poured out her worries. I wish I’d had the forethought to encourage her with what God says in his Word.

In Galatians, Paul addresses freedom in Christ under the umbrella of grace. The church there was tacking on extra rules and regulations, being swayed by every whim, and he saw it fit to set them straight. He said to them,
The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
(Galatians 5:6)
The only thing that counts. Everything else is going to fade away. How can you love your child best and trust Jesus the most? If those two arrows insect at homeschool, then homeschool. If they intersect at public school, then public school! 

My family ended up in a Title I school in the city before we hit the sweet spot. All the resources I’d been collecting, the research I’d depended on earlier–it was all garbage in light of what I think the Lord was trying to teach me.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways submit to him,
And he will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust me, he’d been whispering, my plan is so much bigger than what you can see. Follow me and you’ll never wander into the desert.

I’ve known people who have avoided public school because they are conservative, and they feel public school too liberal. Many of these people have advised me to depend on God, that those he calls, he equips. I know liberals who have avoided school because they think it too conservative. Most of these people have no other advice than to wing it.
But I’ve met very few people who risk their lives by banking solely on the words of God: I will never leave you or abandon you (Deut.31:8), and, take heart, I have overcome the world (John 16:33). I desperately want to be one of those people who believes it’s true.

Think about this, when your little girl comes home crying because someone made fun of her outfit. When your little boy rode the bus home and heard all that naughty language. When they don’t make it into chamber choir. When there is porn in the locker room.
Is trusting Jesus–just Jesus–enough to handle these situations? How do we actively prepare our kids for this world?

I love the perspective Francis Chan takes on schooling:

Some say it’s unfair to throw a child into public school. They compare it to throwing a kid into a rushing river to teach him or her to swim. It’s unfair and impossible. That assumes the Holy Spirit has limited or no power in their lives. I have chosen to see my children as Olympic swimmers. I tell them they are missionaries in their schools and can trust in the Spirit’s power to overcome challenges and to have an impact on those around them. My hope is this training in Holy Spirit dependence proves helpful in an unreached people group or Fortune 500 company…I am not saying everyone should throw their kids into public school. I am also not saying we should foolishly endanger them. I am just wondering whether our habit of underestimating God’s power in them may be a mind-set we develop in them that continues through middle school, high school, and into adulthood.
(Francis Chan, Letters to the Church)

Public school will not cost you your child, but apathy will. 

I’ve done the math. My kids are in school 6.75 hours a day, five days a week. This adds up to 33.75 hours a week, 20% of my week. Even if I subtract sleeping from the equation, I have twice the amount of time at home with my kids as the time they spend in class. Public school is just another hammer in my toolbox.
It is an institution, yes, but it is not just a cold, brown brick building. It is filled with people; mostly the kind that love kids. Now, I’ve met a few weirdos in school to be sure, and there is always going to be someone pushing an agenda. But guess what? We all have an agenda! I have one too, a clear purpose in mind: let them behold a world that needs Jesus. Let them, as a process of maturation, come to their own conclusion.
It’s amazing to me…a tool I could have never designed on my own. My kids return home to me daily pointing out differences:

“Cody watches scary shows, he’s always talking about Freddy or Chucky. I wish he didn’t talk about that.”
“He says the D word all day long and he sits right next to me! I’m so tired of it!”
“I don’t think Ricardo believes in God, he’s always muttering nasty stuff about the teacher.”
“Kyle says his parents beat him.”

Rotten stuff, right? But it is these matter-of-fact observations that show me they are picking up on the idea that this world needs to be put right. The rotten stuff itself opens the door for mercy to flood in. And usually, interspersed with their observations of a broken world, my kids glow with pride:

“Guess what? I got to go down to the kindergarten class and give a presentation on bullying and how to fight it.”
“Mrs. C paired me up with Avi because he doesn’t speak English and she says I’m such a kind helper.”
“I got three pride passes this week!”
“I started a kindness club at recess–we come to the rescue of people who look sad!”

At the kitchen table after school, the lines are open. I’m here to listen and react thoughtfully, carefully. Far be it from me to shut this conversation down. This is as good of learning as any, and I feel so free, so light. I’ve come to the end of myself and found He is right there, leading the way. He’s preparing my kids in ways I never could’ve dreamed up on my own.
It’s the safest and wildest place to play.

Public school didn’t free me from the twin boulders of obligation and expectation–faith expressing itself through love did.

Public Schoolers

A month ago, as I was preparing to send my kids back to school, a homeschool acquaintance and I were visiting. “I’m so excited for them to go back, meet their new teachers and see all their friends,” I remarked. “I really love our public school.”

“Except for all the wrong things you have to teach them to unlearn,” he joked.

My stunned look did not linger–this is par for the course, I’ve come to realize. I’ve homeschooled before, and I’ve made a thousand conclusions of my own. How many splinters have I dug out of others’ eyes, not realizing the planks in mine? 

Still, it stings to be a ne-er-do-well, public school lover in the American Christian church these days. Where is our recourse? What does one say? Do I have the right to feel offended–was he suggesting negligence on my part? Because homeschoolers (I believe, from experience) are the touchiest of people when it comes to opinions on raising kids.
What about all things working together for the good of those who love the Lord? Were there exceptions even to this?

I am thirty-five years old. I have a husband, kids, a mortgage. I am an adult, old enough to own responsibility, equipped enough to defend my choices. Perhaps sometimes it would be worth articulating a view so that others might borrow the fortress when in need.

Public schoolers, even those with close friends and family who homeschool, should not be afraid. I should know the risk I take when I write about it… All my brothers and their wives, even my husband and his brothers–homeschool or were homeschooled. There is a lot riding on my opinions–familial peace, to name a big one.

In my circle, the topic of public school versus homeschool is rife with strong opinions. From what I can tell, it’s like walking on glass to bring it up. One person knows the importance of wearing shoes, the other avoids broken glass altogether. Who is right, who is wrong?

If you don’t think Satan uses fear to deceive us in such uncertain times, you are fooled. Still, it is spiritually overwhelming to think of all the possibilities and have no firm conclusion on what is right or best. I’ve felt crippled amid all my options–is the whole world a stage and are we the actors? Does the Charlotte Mason of a hundred years ago still apply to my home in the suburbs? If my children are naturally little explorers, why do they prefer to be inside fiddling with legos? Who am I to stop them? If I, the parent, am their best teacher, who can ever play the role of substitute? Why does my soul immediately feel calmer when I’m not doling out homework and supper interchangeably? Why are my children wild little minions? Am I doing something horribly wrong?

It is a miserable, consuming burden to roll these thoughts about in my mind.

Worse, to feel pressured by others to do the thing that is malleable and wholly adaptable to one’s life situation.

This is why I have given my kids over to public school and left my wrestling thoughts at the feet of Jesus. Let other folks think it a conflict of interest–I am finally at peace.

I have arrived at peace not because of blind faith (though there certainly is a lot of it involved), but because I’ve tested the waters. I’m trusting in the One who has overcome the world (1 John 4:4). Ultimately, this is what happened: I became despaired that I couldn’t do it all, couldn’t be a good wife, mom, teacher, friend. I feared we were all walking straight off a cliff, no matter what was at the bottom of the canyon. We would be dead upon arrival. Well-meaning words from the peanut gallery only increased my anxiety. So we left, grabbed a hold of Jesus’ hand and let him lead us down the craggy mountain.

Surprisingly, He didn’t ask us to forfeit our children to the world. As a younger mom, I think I had the idea that God wanted me to go ahead and passively sacrifice my kids to him–here you go, God, your will be done. Either than, or I’d better turn out kids like perfect little Jesus cookie cutters–don’t screw up, child! And I knew from experience how damaging that could be. But you know what? I hadn’t suspected it, but there turns out to be a very happy middle ground. You don’t have to throw your child to the wolves or lock them up away from strangers.

The Gospel is family-centric; it values self-denial which can’t be discovered more aptly than in a parent’s love for a child and a child’s obedience to their parent. 

One might point to the verse when Jesus says you must hate your mother, father, sister, brother to be his disciple (Luke 14:26)–but this doesn’t deny the importance of the family unit. In context, it is justified to say that Jesus must be the cornerstone of all we do in faith, including marriage or raising kids. The message of the Gospel–Jesus giving himself up for us–is foundational for any success we might have relationally, because love is born of forgiveness; its core is denial of self. This is indeed a struggle, but a beautiful, joyful one.

Paul remarked to Timothy of the great love of his mom and grandma who trained him in the Scriptures from youth (2 Tim 1:5, 3:14-15). Obviously these women didn’t flee their responsibilities of raising young Timothy in pursuit of their own interests…but they weren’t necessarily homeschoolers, either.

Unfortunately, I think some of the Christian crowd has used the Gospel interchangeably with the term homeschool. We think the only way to train up a child is to keep them at home, under our wing. We think, the Gospel is family-centric, and the closest thing to protecting the institution is homeschool. Perhaps it hasn’t been articulated so, but believe me, we public schoolers hear it loud and clear. God isn’t in school, He is at home with me and my kids.

Last spring there was a school shooting in our metro area. As is protocol, counselors went into classrooms a day later to address the concerns of the students. My son, a precocious nine year old, came home that afternoon and reported it to me.

“Did you know there was a shooting yesterday?” he asked.

“Yeah, Jube, I did,” I said. “I’m so sad that this happens, babe. What a rotten world we live in. Did you guys talk about it at school?”

“A counselor came in, and we all sat and talked about it,” he shrugged. “We didn’t do much. The lady made us all take a deep breath and release it–one for each victim. Then she told us we need to talk kindly to ourselves because our ears are listening.”


I grimaced. This is why people homeschool their kids. “And what did you think about that?” I asked him.

Jubal thought for a moment. “You know, I think that it was nice to take a deep breath to remember the people affected, but did it really help anybody? Does it help to speak kindly to ourselves? Because I don’t think it does. Only God can change our hearts. Only He can save us from ourselves.”

This is the story I told my friend who mentioned my chore in teaching them to unlearn all the wrong things they pick up at public school.

We are not raising kids in a bubble, and they are far more equipped for the world than we give credit. But it has taken me a lot of leaning into Jesus to release my own children into a hostile, hateful world.

I came across a wonderful, out-of-print copy of Heaven Help the Home! By Howard G. Hendricks. Published in 1973, its words  on the “prevailing attitude of passivity” ring even truer today:

Many parents somehow hope for the best and plod along under the cliche, “We just trust the Lord”–which can be a pitiful cop-out. There’s one thing you want to tack in the center of your theological thinking: in both the Old and New Testaments faith, belief, trust are never passive.
Faith that is genuine is always active. The Psalmist put it clearly, “Trust in the Lord and do good” (Ps. 37:3, NASB). You see, your behavior either gives the lie to your beliefs or underscores their reality. Are you trusting the Lord for the means as well as the end? He works in both.

Look at the evidence. Noah sweated through years of preaching, of warning about the flood, of building a boat of radical design. There was no stagnation in Noah’s life. He was running a race with a global cloudburst. God said so–and Noah acted.

Abraham put his townhouse up for sale. To settle in the suburbs? Never! He toured the desert like a nomad. He spent a lifetime scouting real estate for his future family. God said, “Move!” Abraham kept moving.

Moses, plucked from the seclusion of the bulrushes, became the favorite of the Egyptian palace. Later, the diving mandate from the burning bush shifted him into high gear. He defied Pharaoh, marched across the Red Sea, wandered through the wilderness, and never stopped until God took him from Mount Nebo. No immobility for Moses.

All these heroes and many more pleased God because of their faith. The storms of unbelief were raging, but these stalwarts of the faith kept on building the fire! There is no excuse for late 20th century parents to close their family shutters and huddle in the darkness, just “trusting the Lord.” We need to move out where the action is and mix it up with the society to whom God has called us to minister.

What an exhortation! I can’t say I’ve heard anyone cheer so encouragingly, so loudly for true faith in action. God, who is able, calls and equips. He is pleased to help us on the long journey of raising kids. He doesn’t abandon us when we choose public school!

Still, I know how scary it can be. The third chapter of 2 Timothy has some severe words to describe terrible times that were ahead for believers. He warns,
People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God–having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.

2 Timothy 3:1-5

I don’t believe Paul is talking only about people outside the church, but all of culture as a whole. Even people who parade around, waving their Christian flag. This, if we’re being honest, is horrific yet prophetic. It’s already obvious in our lifetime. But we cannot let fear defeat faith, and we who follow Jesus have marching orders.
Join with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer. (2 Tim. 2:3-4)

Isn’t there inherent danger in following Jesus, bearing a cross, raising a family? 

If we are losing our children it is because we’ve abandoned them to themselves or preached another gospel altogether. We’ve left them under the glossy banner of Jesus when we should’ve been leading them to the cross. We’ve touted unnecessary freedoms in favor of strength training, that they might bear up under oppression and persecution. 

When I read Bible stories to my kids, I’m blown away by the foolish, worthless characters God happens to use for his glory. Gideon? Weak, cowardly. David? Seemingly manic-depressive. Jonah? A jerk. Yet God routed their fickle nature and the arrogant culture pervading their times. Can He not use me, too? Can I not depend wholly on His word, which is able to equip me for every good work? (2 Tim. 3:17) Can not my children depend on Him too?
I–a lover of books, art, history, and all things nerdy could set them on a path of memorizing Shakespeare and quaint poems from the 1800s, and they might tire of it in a year’s time. I might organize the nicest little reading nook, take them on every nature walk within twenty miles. Do I think this sort of lifestyle will follow them into adulthood? Isn’t this exactly what King Solomon cried out as meaningless? I could wear myself out preparing a path for my child and not my child for the path. Or I could look at things more reasonably from a kingdom perspective–everything in passing away. We are but a breath, a vapor. Our minds aren’t for reckoning as much as our souls are made for worship. In light of what is going on in the world, shouldn’t I make them aware that people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God?

We are in this world, and yet we are not to look like the people around us. Throughout life we are making choices. I might choose to be a stay at home mother with my children in their early years because it seems beneficial to them to experience a mundane, safe, dependable home life. I might decide to get rid of Netflix, eliminate screen time, feed my kids more veggies, go to bed early. It’s up to me as a grownup–I judge what is necessary, what is wholesome and appropriate for my family. Might we slowly teach them about racism, entitlement, poverty–by bumping shoulders with the world?

If life, then, is a million choices, each one will draw us closer to Jesus or distance ourselves from Him. If the better portion of our life–adulthood–is to be spent “testing the spirits”–how are we preparing our kids for the future? What kind of education will best teach them to ask the right questions?

This is where we have settled, in that hazy mundane of kids beginning to ask hard questions and Jesus-take-the-wheel kind of answers. Public schoolers with our eyes on the horizon, feet in the fire. 

It will be said that a rational person accepts the world as mixed of good and evil with a decent satisfaction and a decent endurance. But this is exactly the attitude which I maintain to be defective… We do not want joy and anger to neutralise each other and produce a surly contentment; we want a fiercer delight and a fiercer discontent. We have to feel the universe at once as an ogre’s castle, to be stormed, and yet as our own cottage, to which we can return at evening.
No one doubts that an ordinary man can get on with this world; but we demand not strength enough to get on with it, but strength enough to get on. Can he hate it enough to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing?
Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Those who see

Rich Man Dilemma
Essay 3

Jubal and I visited the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit at the museum in the spring. We are two unapologetic history nerds, our pockets already full of vitruvian man and flying machine facts. Psychology and science have always fascinated me…I might’ve majored in psychology if it hadn’t been for my dad poking fun at it. Not that he paid for my college–he certainly didn’t–but I feared his opinion more than my desire because he was the wisest person I knew. The metaphysical and any obscure philosophy was irrelevant to him, and I was obviously wasting time and energy if I cared to know anything of ids or egos. 

The obedient daughter acquiesced. 

Of course psychology is, ultimately, man’s finite grasp on human motivation. We could fill up all the tabulas rasas in the world and still be scratching out new notions. Still, I was curious. I am curious. When a baby’s mother walks out of the room, does he really cry because he thinks she has gone forever? Why do my children, upon entering the car and barely pulling out of the garage, insist they are starving and in need of a snack? Is this Pavlovian pull a result of me not feeding them enough, or are they triggered by smell old left-behind Doritos and the motion of a car in reverse?

On the wall at the da Vinci exhibit was a quote of his:

There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see.

I would bet that everyone walking around the exhibit read that quote and thought, ah, I am a person who sees! Da Vinci, in his genius, surely made this observation with himself at the helm of his vessel. He was ignorant to his own cocky nature. Isn’t it the truth? Our pride indicates our very need to be humbled. 

I get caught up in this spin cycle on a daily basis. I love (love!) researching things, collecting an infinite wading pool of information. This buoys my power to reason and feel acceptably knowledgeable in a world of confusion. I like feeling as if I’ve got things figured out–only then can I articulate a sense of belonging or security. When I am unsure, I reason that I am only ignorant and must dig for more information. Once I’ve done some research, certainly again rules the throne and I go only my merry way until I hit the next fork in the road.

The evidence of this habit in my life are stacks and stacks of books that are marked and underlined. A hundred tabs on my computer, audiobooks on my phone. In the last two weeks alone I have read and listened to hours of Enneagram books and podcasts. I’ve read about school policies and puppy training, Abraham Lincoln and clownfish (did you know the male turns into a female?), the Khmer Regime, Emily Dickinson. I’ve read about rigid-minded versus high-performing children. I’ve read Francis Chan’s latest book on church and The Denver Post. I watched an entire Netflix series on tacos just so I could practice my Spanish comprehension.

The key thing to note is the time I’m afforded to peruse my interests. The phone in my pocket, the computer on my desk. The car that can get me to a library. The Netflix account. The one-click Amazon life.
I am blind to my entitlement and the power that money affords. Education. Literacy. Freedom to ask questions.

I think I am a person who sees. I think I am a person who knows.

I think I am a person who has scaled the sacred pyramid of Maslow. I’ve surpassed the need levels of physiology, safety, love, esteem; eventually steam rolling on to self-actualization. I check the boxes like it’s my grocery list: well-fed, check. Safe neighborhood, security system, check. Husband and kids, check. Respectable job, meaningful work, check check.

Who can fault me for wanting meaningful conversations, a four bedroom house, and weekend museum visits with my exceptional, talented children? I can stand unashamed because I’ve worked hard to get here. All the arrows point up to hand-painted rainbow framing my American dream-land. Isn’t it my right and reward?

James 1:9-10 says,

Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. But the rich should take pride in their humiliation–since they will pass away like a wildflower.

The truth is, most of us will never see, even when we are shown. I think I am pursuing excellence when all I’m doing is building pride of life–a fragile little wisp, a wilting wildflower. I’m living in the neighborhood of make-believe with the other puppets. Any time I Super Mario-ed my way up to the next level, I wasn’t gaining favor with anyone but me–it was always a game to distract myself from what was real. Ultimately–shamefully–it’s been all about me. All I can take pride in is my own humiliation: I’ve been cultivating contempt for the One who made me.

Perhaps Maslow’s pyramid is shaped a lot like the Tower of Babel. Could it be we weren’t ever meant to summit the slippery slope to the peak? 

Maybe our humanistic approach is so self-serving, so prideful that God must come level the construction. He must confound us back down to the ground.  
I say this because no amount of thinking it over and reasoning it out has led me to peace or even a truer, more holistic and balanced life. What happened in my own life looked more like striving for perfection followed by a slow-motion crash and burn. This was evidenced by deep depression and hopelessness. And that was actually when the light broke through, when I understood what it meant to be forgiven for trying to blaze my own miserable path. You see, reasoning never gave me a green light on trusting God. Desperation and confusion did. Poverty of the soul.

I wonder if the rich young ruler wasn’t but an eighteen year old kid when he met Jesus. Was he a philosophical man? Perhaps he grew up and had a life-altering experience that brought his knees to the ground. Maybe he changed– “What is impossible with man is possible with God.” (Luke 18)

Or maybe he just kept clawing his way to the top, forever unsatisfied. Blind, yet convinced he could see.

Whoever loves money never has enough;
Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income.
This too is meaningless.           
Ecclesiastes 5:10

Jesus and

Rich Man Dilemma
Essay 2

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.”

Luke 16:13-15

It wasn’t only my phone that alerted me to my jealous, self-serving ways. It was how easily it slid in and out of my pocket at a moment’s notice. It was how everyone else had the same lust for theirs. How we all could carry a conversation without meeting one another’s eye. How we could all holler at our children when they threatened to touch it, yet cradle it for hours in our own greedy paws. It isn’t an addiction, we told ourselves. I need it for work. What if my husband tries to call me?

The rich young ruler was, in every sense, addicted to his lifestyle. He was far too content to leave it behind, even when the master of the universe beckoned. It was the ease he didn’t care to abandon; he actually didn’t have an inkling there was anything wrong with it. Jesus and tacos, Jesus and coffee, Jesus, a king sized bed, air-conditioning, puppies and pedicures. Jesus plus the world! The rich man was astonished that Jesus might ask him to leave it behind.

A year and a half ago, my husband and I were raising four beautiful wild children in southwest Colorado, the crown of the mountains. After nine years our souls suddenly felt burdened and we didn’t know why. We finally were making enough money to pay our mortgage and then some. I homeschooled the kids (this adventure in another book) and felt fairly righteous about performing this “ultimate sacrifice” of love for their well-being. We lived among weekend warriors who valued the thrill of adventure–hiking, ultrarunning, mountain biking, skiing, snowboarding. The people around us were beautiful, healthy, successful.
But the have-it-all lifestyle told another story. An obvious disdain for the disadvantaged and underperforming hung thick in the mountain air. A rich man doesn’t want to look around and see his world out of order. He doesn’t want to see anyone struggling, so he will pretend no one is struggling. Most casual conversations barely scraped the surface because no one was admitting to themselves or anyone else that life could be more what pleasures afforded us. 

For several years this didn’t bother us. It’s the culture, we reasoned. We became weekend warriors like the rest, paying homage to our youthful bodies by covering miles of mountain trails. But as time went on, it felt like a hamster wheel. Nothing varied. Everyone was always fine, even happy! Not one person needed us, not really, and we felt a little pressure to reciprocate this attitude. Maybe, we thought, maybe we shouldn’t need anybody, either. 

Thankfully, this little inkling didn’t grow too big before we shook it off for the lie it was.

We couldn’t ignore the suicide statistics in our county, somewhere triple the national average. We could no longer turn a blind eye to the acquaintances whose marriages were crumbling despite their allegiance to whole foods, recycling, sunrise hikes.

We were affected; we were distraught. We sat on our sofa at night and puzzled what it could mean. What would the future look like if we stayed in our mountain paradise and gave our young family all the benefits of a successful, money-fueled lifestyle? What of homeschool, a season pass to the ski resort, local breweries filled with IPA beers and flat brimmed hats spelled disaster? We could still curb the outside influences, shield our kids from bad news. We could teach AWANA on Wednesday nights after we came home from ski school.  It made for a good Instagram account, but the account we were worried about was the one we’d have to give to the Lord some day.


That’s when we realized Jesus was nowhere to be found on our mountain. He wasn’t hanging around behind the curtains, waiting for a spotlight. He wasn’t even the spotlight, shining down his blessing on our stylish Colorado adventure-life. If we wanted Jesus to be a part of it, to reign as king, we’d have to let our lifestyle die. We had to stop caring about fitting it, independence, about what other people thought of us; we’d even have to drop the homeschool facade. Our hippy, privileged laissez-faire, you-do-you attitude actually reeked of superiority and we were beginning to smell of it. Jesus said to the rich man: give it all up and follow me.

He wanted our radical dependence on him, not some fake self-glorified version of piety. God or Money, the good Teacher said. “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts.”

This is hard to let past our stubborn ears. I’ve often comforted myself with the old sermon on how it isn’t money that is the root of all evil, but the love of it.  It’s actually pretty easy to convince myself I don’t love money, and then I can go right on spending it. I can go on worshipping the lifestyle it can buy me. My kids can still be outstanding musicians as long as I can afford private lessons. I can live on the mountain, have a manicured yard, hire babysitters and housekeepers, go on dream vacations, buy all my groceries from Whole Foods. It all has God’s stamp of approval, because I’ve convinced myself I don’t love money. I just kind of love what it affords.
See, money can become a snare. It looks so pretty. So attainable. So worth getting caught up in. But it is still a trap. It becomes the master of me, and Jesus said there can only be one master, God or Money.

Jesus asked the rich young ruler to do less, to be less. To take up less space on this green earth biding time on his own terms. Jesus asked the guy to risk it all, to ditch his rich-man lifestyle. He was asking him to take a chance that there was more, bigger, better, holier in store for him.

This is precisely why the man went away sad–the Savior told him to pick a Master. Yet the man spoke with Jesus in the flesh! How could he have not followed! Every good little girl or boy in Sunday school has wondered. We root for him, pick Jesus! As if the matter is as simple as honey or jelly on toast. But it is no tidy matter, this I can tell you. It turns out money can buy happiness, at least for a while. You just have to keep acquiring it and spending it to keep up the momentum. The rich man–he “became very sad, because he was very wealthy.” (Lk. 18:23) He could see his whole, promising future with a little price sticker at the bottom, and he could afford it, the lakehouse, the boat, the whole shebang. He was heartsick because he already had a master, and it wasn’t God.

Every day I face the rich man’s dilemma.
I admit, It is a heck of a lot harder to look Jesus in the eye when I have two cars parked in my garage and nice clothes on my back.
But I’m changing. In the last year alone, I’ve learned more about who Jesus is, and it’s made me aware of my former fickleness. It’s made me despise my old Master and how easily I used to agree with the world. The scratched-up, thirteen-year-old, paid-for car no longer beckons me to trade it in for a slick minivan. My kids are public schoolers, and I don’t even try to justify this fact in the eyes of others. We have left some things to follow Jesus, even recently. Everytime we say no to the world, to the expectations of culture and even well-meaning friends, we say another yes to Jesus. We tilt our heads to listen to what the world is saying, then we crack open the Bible to see what His Word is saying.
And we choose Jesus–only Jesus–to be our Master.

You want, and cannot have

Rich Man Dilemma
Essay 1

When I wake up in the morning, before I get my coffee or even roll out of bed, I look at my phone. I want to know what time it is, of course. It’s the only clock I have. However, it also has a convenient, horrid little feature where the whole internet appears before me with the press of a button. Like habit, as if it were my very solemn duty, I check three things on my phone: email, texts, instagram. 
Let’s be clear: this is available to me because I am a stay-at-home mom. I can afford to sit in bed for a few minutes and scroll the news. I do not have to take a shower or get dressed or do anything besides feed my children breakfast on a summer morning.
To be honest, sometimes I cannot stand it, that I know I will not get anything done today. I might raise my voice in frustration–this is pretty much a given, since boys do not usually brush their teeth or pick up the living room out of the abundance of goodness in their nine year old hearts. I will inevitably make meals for picky, ungrateful children. I’ll listen to a three year old scream for a half hour before she gives into a nap. There will be no checklist to mark off, no paycheck at the end of my two weeks. It’ll just be another two weeks and another two weeks times a hundred at snail’s pace.
So when I look on instagram and see people on their ninth day of vacation in Italy while the grandparents watch their kids, I will burn with a self-righteous jealousy. At least I care enough about my kids to not abandon them for shrimp scampi, wine, and grownup adventures.

I comfort myself with pride: I am getting a lot of nothing done, but maybe it is a good kind of nothing. Maybe dragging them through Walmart and never giving into buying Pokemon cards builds fortitude. They are experienced with folding clothes and digging in the dirt. If out of boredom they have become hopelessly addicted to books and odd sink-plugging science experiments, does that not suffice as a good mom badge? They play well with others… Perhaps it is all related to a mom who stays at home and yells at them five times to get their teeth brushed before noon? Sure, I’ll settle for the consolation prize.

It’s true and noble, this way of thinking, but it would have been better for me to not frame it against my internet not-even-real-friend’s vacation pictures.  “Guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life”–it isn’t so much about preventing bad things from coming in, but sieving my own water so my well isn’t a muddy pig pen. James alluded to this:
“Do you not know what causes quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.” (James 4:1-2)
Everything boils down to jealousy, and we wouldn’t be feeling jealous if we’d just drop the things that cause us to feel so darn jealous. I might be happy if I wasn’t an internet busybody. I’d be less worried about me time, less ruffled over my inability to keep up with Joneses, less proud of my mundane victories. All in all, I’d have more room to love Jesus and the people around me.

This notion hooked its claws in my coattails and I dragged it around pitifully for several years. I want, and I cannot have. 

I write chapters in three minute increments, the time it takes for a kid to find me hiding with my laptop and interrupt with something of extreme importance: He hit me! I pooped and there’s no toilet paper. Teach me how to fold this ice cube into a paper towel (what?). Can I eat some cake? Mom, if you were a Viking, would you trust a vegetarian hunter dragon to catch food for your tribe?
Sometimes I allow myself to feel supremely irritated by their blatant disregard for my writing time. I think for the last ten years I have been raising kids that still cannot get their own dang toilet paper or cut a piece of cake. Aloud I say, “Stop playing with ice cubes!” and “No, I wouldn’t trust a vegetarian hunter dragon to catch my food.”

I am home with my kids, my husband is working hard to pay my bills, I am sleeping through the night, we are all healthy. I woke up this morning and took a hot shower and tonight I will kiss my people before I fall asleep. Tomorrow I will buy them Pokemon cards in payment for a summers’ worth of mowed back yard. This is all enough, it is plenty. Still I want, and I cannot have.

I lie on the couch at night, hanging onto the silent hours when I should already be in bed. I berate myself for not getting more done, for not having a cleaner house. I review the days’ events in my mind, wish I was a better mom, wife, friend. I let myself feel aggravated with people whose problems play footsie with my own insecurities.

My thumb mindlessly scrolls. I’m a couch potato, my eyes trained on a glowing miniature screen. And this is what those Instagram busybodies are singing to me, even as they innocently paint it glossy, empathetic, or empowering–”You’ll get your Hawaii timeshare/speaking gig/book deal/successful business someday!” 

It smells rotten, and what’s worse–I keep picking it up to smell it. I want and cannot have–this is true, but I am tired of it, the wanting. And I hope, because I know: there still is potential for it not to fully maim me. 

How many years can a body go on coveting without it costing your very soul? How long can I try to convince myself that I’m not really covetous? Who owns me, who feeds my well when I greedily swallow all the pictures of things I want and cannot have?

James cracks a whip with his words.

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.    James 3:13-16

The wise man–he says–lives quietly in deeds that are humble, undeclared, non-pixelated. Influencers and self-promoters, they wither in wisdom’s sunlight. They are, ultimately, the gatekeepers of disorder. Stay away! James warns.

You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes and enemy of God.    James 4:4 

This truth hit me like a slap in the face. I decided to unhook Facebook and Instagram from my coattails. As if I owed Mark Zuckerberg or his cronies a blessed thing! Not my pictures, opinions, privacy, joy. I might very well want and cannot have, but I can certainly limit its loud, mocking voice. I could walk away from that little phone with the one magic button. I could get an old fashioned alarm clock to wake me up in the mornings.

This, I think, is the struggle of the rich young ruler Jesus speaks with in Luke 18. He is the Bible character to whom I best relate. The rich man, greedy and good as me, wanted to have it all, be it all. His cell phone tucked in his back pocket, he approached the Master and asked him what he needed to do in order to inherit eternal life. He was willing to add a new title to his resumé, sing at church on Sunday morning, sort out his recycling bins. So he was caught off guard when Jesus said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Lk. 18:22)
I imagine there was an awkward pause as the man thought about his latest Amazon Prime purchases and instinctively felt for the cell phone in his pocket so he could text his girlfriend what Jesus said (shocked emoji + bawling emoji). The story says, “When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy.” (Lk. 18:23)

I know this feeling. I want, and I cannot have. Jesus, I want to follow You, but You say I must let go in order to have more.  I especially have to let go of the things of this world, the things that look harmless but suck me into disorder and dirty my well.

Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Those who heard this asked, “Who then can be saved?”

Jesus replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”
(Lk. 18:24-27)

I have started to hate that phone in my pocket, the phone that wakes me up in the morning, the phone that causes desires to battle within me. How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! 
But Jesus says what is impossible with man is possible with God.
This is the shred of hope.
Hope for the rich man.  
Hope for me.

July 4th

I hope you are raising your flags and donning stars and stripes this weekend. I hope you are remembering the price paid for you, that you might be able to mark a holiday rooted in freedom. There have been generations of great men and women who thought of you, their own future generations to come. Many were they who sacrificed their lives that you might have the privilege of choosing what is best along the lines of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

In the baby stage of our country there must have been several sanguine folk who knew the story of a Life laid down for another. I don’t believe their courage was of the diesel truck, guns n’ guts variety. Nor did they stand, bawdy and proud on the cusp of a sexual revolution.
What they valued and held dear were their families, food in their bellies, and the right to defend their lives. In this spirit, they gritted their teeth and sent their beloved sons off to war.

I’ve seldom heard a veteran tell stories without tears staining his cheeks. A dear friend of ours, a WW2 bomber pilot, never spoke of his service. It was too costly to mention.

I am wondering at the cycle of history and how quickly we are abandoning our reverence for freedom. Perhaps this shows how indifferent we have become. Maybe we’ve so acclimated to our rights that we are flabby in our convictions. It seems our culture is too thinned-skinned and tolerant to even be bold enough to step out as free-thinking individuals–what used to be the cornerstone of our democracy. If your right to think and act freely is limited by my idea of what I understand to be acceptable–well, then, that is hardly freedom. We are only tossing lassoes around each other’s necks, hoping to throttle one another. If we keep running in circles around gun control, abortion, immigration–well then, I think we are missing the root of the issue. I wonder: what will become of America?

There are two things to consider, and they are these:

The first: We are all living in an infinite space that we feebly approach as finite. Whether you believe in a God or not, the cosmos are immeasurable and expansive. Numbers continue to count up to infinity. We are only humans with a bit of reasoning humming in our heads. The rules we have determined to make a government have evolved from intuition fed by experience. Observing the if-thens, causes-and-effects–these are our best, most humane (as we understand them) tools to govern men. For example, if a proven murderer isn’t justly punished, he may go on killing people. Therefore, we lock him up to prevent him from doing so.


The second thing to consider is–there are some things we cannot control–things that are out of our power to reason. How can hate and bitterness grow so prolific in our hearts? How could a person come to the point of murdering? Yet each of us is fully capable of the very act! It is a scary, overwhelming thought, to face the depth of depravity inside our own souls. It has been clawing instinctually in our bones since the dawn of time. We dare God himself, hate burning in our eyes: What if I did whatever I want?

And so these two things–our feeble, limited understanding of controlling what we think is right and good and our inner, out of control me-me-me! monster, fight constantly. It is manifested in every institution: family, work, school, government. Every hot topic is in a tug of war between perceived control and selfishness, both of which quickly run amok, because we cannot rightly source the why behind our motives. When our feathers are ruffled or expectations are not met, we stiffen and throw a tantrum. 

Perhaps we have reached the pinnacle of freedom apart from God, and this is why we must begin chaining up those who disagree with us. It is an ugly cycle, the push-pull of souls who are inwardly divided.

Our capacity to rage self-righteously and our out-of-control urge to get what we want–as well as the desire to watch others scratch each other’s eyeballs out over the matters of the day–is ultimately ruining us. Plain and simple, we are sinners.

Sin? Who even talks about sin anymore? Not just the dirty, fleshy kind, but the self-righteous, fake kind? We sprinkle these pesky attitudes with soft admonitions–Talk kindly to yourself! Be open-minded! But only with an undercurrent philosophy of do what makes you happy. We sabotage our own best intentions simply by being under the influence of the world. We will not make peace unless someone bends a knee, till a major sacrifice is made.
George Washington said,

The Nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.

This is a curious thing to say in 2019. That a nation might be founded on Christian principles and held up by duty…or carried off by hate or pleasure–look around! It is not impossible! In fact, we are staring this disaster in the face. We have taken a holy God out of the picture–replaced him with our own cockroach-level ideas of freedom.
But Jesus still offers peace–marked by the blood He once shed on a cross. His life for yours.
You might lay down your life and find He hands you a new one, a better one. This is the way to freedom. This marks the path of liberty, where even a whole nation can be healed.

America is fascinating. She has birthed her own breed of beautiful misfits and adopted many more. She has welcomed the “tired, the poor, the huddling masses yearning to be free” (Emma Lazarus). This has not been without a price, and I am thankful that people who have never known me have paid it.

In G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy, he makes a study of order and grace. It makes me think of the opportunities we still have in our country as Americans:

We must be much more angry with theft than before, and yet much kinder to thieves than before. There was room for wrath and love to run wild. And the more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.
(Chesterton, Orthodoxy)

God bless America, the land of the free, the land of heroes. May we turn back to Jesus so we might find peace among men. May we make room for good things to run wild.