Lead by example

I'm excited to be over at Dulce de leche today, guest posting on the topic of leading by example:

Lead by example.

It's well-worn advice, but well-worn for a reason: It's good advice. We should never underestimate the power of our example. Our children, our husbands, and others can all be affected - positively or negatively - by what we model in our lives.

There is perhaps no area this applies to more than that of parenting, particularly for those of us who choose to use gentle discipline as we raise our children. How might this play out in our lives?

We can lead our children by our example. Our children look to us for cues and guidance. What do they see? Would we want them to model their lives after our own? Consider these three major areas...

Read the rest over at Dulce de leche!

Dulce is a sweet mom of three who is passionate about gentle discipline, breastfeeding, and parent-child relationships. Her mission is to help turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the hearts of the children to their parents. Be sure to check out some of her other excellent posts while you're there (such as my personal favourite, A Lesson from my Petite Chef)!


(Don't forget to follow along with the Carnival of Gentle Discipline this week. I've included an article on gentle discipline for toddlers, and I'd love for you to come share your tips as well!)

Is Jesus greater than our differences?

Once upon a time, there was a girl who thought that if it was conservative, it was right (and of course everyone else was wrong).

Then that girl grew up.

It was hard to let go of the simplicity in that black-and-white world, but what a delight to discover grey! And not only grey, but red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple - such a beautifully bright and colourful world!

But alas, her former black-and-white world remained heavily populated, and the two worlds often bumped up against each other. Things weren't always peachy in her new colourful world either. Always too liberal for some, too conservative for others, she struggled to find belonging and community amongst all the colour.

In time she came to realize that a good part of this struggle was because she was searching for her double, someone who agreed with her in every way. It was just another form of black-and-white, only now she was looking for just that right shade of blue-green-purple.

And so the story goes. That girl is me, that struggle is mine. Maybe you, my sister or brother, have a similar story, or maybe yours is very different, but I'm sure of one thing: we're all headed in the same direction. Always the journey onward, always the two-steps-forward-one-step-back, always the growth that frees us to find community in the least expected places.

I'm still waiting for my happily ever after, but maybe we can find a bit of that wholeness here on earth in the meantime. How? By uniting in our one similarity - Jesus.

This unity isn't one more stab at black-and-white uniformity. It's a unity that acknowledges and honours the sincerity in each of us. We can love each other through our disagreements. We can embrace kindness, serve one another, and assume the best in each other's intents.

So you're a Calvinist and she's a Catholic and he's gay, but we all love Jesus. Can Jesus be greater than all the rest? Can even that one similarity outweigh our many differences? Is Jesus bigger than our disagreements?

I like to think so.

What about you?

This post was written for inclusion in the Rally to Restore Unity. What can our unity do? Maybe it can bring clean water to those who need it. Donate at the Rally to Restore Unity Charity: Water campaign.

Natural Parents Network: Volunteer Posts

Natural Parents Network is a community of natural-minded parents with a mission to inform, empower, and inspire. “Natural parenting” is based on a desire to live and parent responsively and consciously, including Attachment/Responsive Parenting, Ecological Responsibility and Love of Nature, Holistic Health Practices, and Natural Learning.

As Articles Editor, I can vouch for the great work Natural Parents Network is doing. Today I'd like to share with you some of the best posts written by NPN editors, mentors, authors and moderators, all volunteers for this growing community. If you haven't yet, I encourage you to join the NPN community on their website, Facebook and Twitter.





Joella at Fine and Fair discusses her unique perspective of a controversial toy in her unusual gripe with Bebe Gloton.

Amy at Innate Wholeness offers simple tips to be present with family whether you're having fun and want to soak it up like a sponge or would rather run and hide in a cave.

Charise at I Thought I Knew Mama shares sound bites from her miscarriage journey of forgiveness and gratitude.

Shannon at Pineapples and Artichokes writes about how she is trying to raise her daughter to be accepting of everyone.

Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama discusses the overuse of the word "no" and offers some aid in finding creative ways to avoid "no."

Melissa at The New Mommy Files: Memories, Milestones and Missteps makes a compelling case for instinctual mothering.

Amanda at Let's Take the Metro shares a comprehensive list of food she always keeps on hand.

Suchada at Mama Eve writes a heartfelt letter chronicling her journey through a difficult transition with sleep, crying, and balancing closeness with boundaries.

Shannon at The ArtsyMama shares her list of ten things she wishes she knew before the birth of her son.

Kristin at Intrepid Murmurings offers tips and tricks for babywearing two.

Julia at A Little Bit of All of It tells the story of how motherhood came to her and how a miscarriage shaped her feelings and perceptions surrounding the birth of her first daughter.

Emily at Embrita Blogging shares a collection of photos depicting ten things that make her happy.

Lauren at Hobo Mama discusses postpartum sex versus sex before kids.

As part of an ongoing series about balance, Amy at Anktangle writes about a daily ritual she has adopted to help her maintain balance in her life.

Cynthia at The Hippie Housewife is reminded that while the days may sometimes be long, the years are short, and after a rough day the best thing to do is give thanks for the best parts and try again tomorrow.

Dionna at Code Name: Mama offers seven alternatives to saying "good job", ideas to really connect with and nurture your child.

Darcel at The Mahogany Way has the ultimate boredom busting activity for children of all ages.

Alicia at Lactation Narration discusses the long journey of child-led weaning, during which she thought several times that her child was weaned before she really was.

Mandy at Living Peacefully With Children talks about how letting go of the illusion of control opens up a an entirely new world.

Luschka at Diary of a First Child talks about the battle between breastfeeding and formula feeding mothers and the industry that stokes the flames of a war on mothers.

Mary at The Accidental Natural Mama recounts her journey to mama-hood.

Sheryl at Little Snowflakes talks about the the benefits of nursing a child to sleep.

Rachael at The Variegated Life meditates on the moment when she first saw herself fully embodying her life as a mother.


I hope you enjoy these links, and that they give you plenty of encouragement, inspiration, and a little something to think about!

Do you have a piece you are particularly proud of? Share it in the comments below!

Unreasoning Fear

"Things happen all the time."

This is the common sentiment used to justify a constant line-of-sight supervision of our children. Don't glance away, don't leave them alone, not even for a minute, because things happen all the time.

This is a challenging discussion to have because first, it is difficult to disagree with the overarching mentality in light of horrifying personal stories, and second, any attempts to do so leave you looking both thoughtless and careless.

Stranger abduction. None of us want our children to be that "one child" it happens to. The thought is beyond horrifying. The U.S. Department of Justice reports that:

• 797,500 children (younger than 18) were reported missing in a one-year period of time studied (1999) resulting in an average of 2,185 children being reported missing each day.
• 203,900 children were the victims of family abductions.
• 58,200 children were the victims of non-family abductions.
• 115 children were the victims of “stereotypical” kidnapping. (These crimes involve someone the child does not know or someone of slight acquaintance, who holds the child overnight, transports the child 50 miles or more, kills the child, demands ransom, or intends to keep the child permanently.)
(source)

But when we step back and look at the risk of stranger abduction (less than one child per day in the entire United States), and then look at the very real risks to a child's development that come along with direct, constant, line-of-sight supervision at all times and in all places, the latter, I believe, has very far-reaching implications both to the individual and to society as a whole.

I am fully supportive of proactive parenting that teaches and empowers children to recognize and respond to danger. I am not comfortable with parenting that sees danger around every corner and insists on constant supervision at all times and in all places. Our fear of "stranger danger" has kept too many children indoors, in front of the television, playing video games, and surfing the web, rather than outdoors exploring, discovering, running, climbing, and building.

I also see a dangerous dichotomy in telling our children that all strangers are to be feared and yet that all adults should be automatically respected and obeyed - particularly because, statistically speaking, a child is at far greater risk from those placed in charge of them (teachers, leaders, caregivers, etc) than they are from strangers.

The very concept of "stranger danger" actually creates a more dangerous community for our children, because a) children become fearful of all strangers, including the vast majority who would help rather than harm them, and b) adults become fearful of all interactions with children, including any attempts to help them, for fear of being accused of nefarious motives (thinking, for example, of the tragic pond drowning of a two-year-old girl, because the man who saw her wandering down the street was too afraid to help her for fear of being accused of kidnapping). When all adults (particularly men) are automatically suspect, everyone loses. Community cannot bloom and thrive under these conditions.

I am in no way suggesting that we throw our children to the wolves, but I don't believe we can teach them to think for themselves, trust their own judgement, or make good decisions if they are under our constant supervision. How can they properly handle responsibility and freedom if we never give it to them nor expect it from them?

None of this is helped by media hype (sensational news sells), nor by the many organizations and individuals who stand to profit by elevating public anxiety (buy our gadget, it will help keep your child safe!). It is in many ways like our fear of germs, egged on in order to sell to the public that which was originally intended for medical professionals. Take, for example, Purrell's "imagine a touchable world" slogan, with its implication that the world is untouchable without their products, or Lysol's "Mission for Health" and "Healthy Babies" programs. But how do you make a case against these profit-driven tactics when the certain response is, "are you really willing to risk your child's life? Isn't it worth it if it might protect them?"

And yet...don't nearly all of us frequently take our children in the car? The rates of child death due to vehicular accidents is approximately twenty times greater than the rates of stranger abduction (2,863 child passengers died in 1999, to contrast the stats above, and 2,270 in 2007, to give a more recent figure (source)). But we accept that everyday risk because we believe the benefit of driving in the car is greater than the risk of our children dying in a car crash (while, of course, doing what we can to make that car trip as safe as possible, including seatbelts and extended rear-facing carseats and so on - all of which still don't bring down the death rates to anywhere near the rates of stranger abduction). Likewise, I believe the benefit of a child-appropriate "free-range childhood" is greater than the risk of stranger abduction - and I, too, will do what I can do make that free-range childhood as safe as possible by arming my children with knowledge and confidence.

Even so, nothing I could possibly do will make this life entirely safe for my children. I will pray (and pray and pray and pray) for their safety - mind, body, and soul - but I cannot eliminate all risks. To believe I can is to place undue guilt on myself while creating a false sense of security for my family.

Being aware of the real dangers is more productive than adopting a worst-case scenario mentality. Family abductions, for example, are several hundred times more common than stranger abductions. If I had an unstable ex, I would absolutely take greater precautions with my child. Likewise with child molestation - frighteningly common, especially by family members and friends.

This failure to differentiate between "things that happen all the time" and "worst-case scenarios" is highlighted, I think, in the argument that "you wouldn't leave your purse unattended, would you?" No, typically I wouldn't - because it is (relatively speaking) no big deal to snatch a purse. Snatching a child, on the other hand, takes a very rare type of person. I am reminded of the story of a man who stole a car, not realizing there was a child strapped in the back - and upon discovering the child, immediately turned the car around and returned the child to his mother. That is the very real difference I am speaking of - people will steal things, but very very few will steal a child.

At some point, my children are likely to encounter someone unsafe. I cannot remove that possibility from their lives. I can, however, give them the tools they need to avoid dangerous situations when possible, live through it if they have to, and process it in a healthy manner when it is over. As such, these are my primary goals:

• provide skills and knowledge
• encourage them to trust their intuition and avoid general fear
• respect their body and teach them to do the same
• emphasize the importance of honesty
• remove any aura of shame from the topic
• build a strong community in our neighbourhood

I am still working on how best to accomplish these goals, but they give me something to work towards and, ideally, prevent me from falling into a fear-based approach to parenting. I'd love to hear how you balance avoiding the irrational "stranger danger" fear/mentality while also providing your children with the tools they need to keep themselves safe.




Recommended Reading:
Free-Range Kids by Lenore Skenazy
The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker
Protecting the Gift by Gavin de Becker
Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv

The quiet place

My thoughts, my emotions, both have been such a jumbled mess lately. I feel torn in a hundred different directions and I find myself drawing inward, seeking grounding in this quiet inner place.

Part of me is reaching out, longing for stronger community, deeper connection, sincere and lasting relationships. Another part of me is drawing away, deeply hurt by other relationships, the desire for reconciliation warring with the desire to give in to the sadness and hurt and anger. Another part of me is frustrated that my desire for community and connection is so often thwarted, whether by circumstances or people or even myself. And still another part is quietly reminding me that while relationship is a good, God-ordained thing, my ultimate fulfillment must come from God alone.

I feel angered by the church, disgusted by twisted doctrines and misplaced priorities, repelled by the false humility, saddened by so many misunderstandings of God and Christ and what it all means. I long for more opportunities to serve Him, to speak of His irreplaceable Love, to fellowship with those who are sincere and beautifully imperfect, those saints who are covered in the blood of Jesus. I am wooed by my first Love, called back even as life tempts me away, and yet desperately clinging to the One truth, the One unfailing, the One unchanging, the One righteous.

I feel blessed beyond measure for what I have been granted in this life, these two boys. The weight and privilege of their upbringing bring me equal parts joy and terror. I feel confident one moment and overwhelmed the next. I want to be here for them when they need me; I want quiet moments to myself; I want time with my peers and my peers alone to develop and strengthen those soul-lifting friendships. How can I be everything to everyone, even myself?

My heart hurts for the sins and tragedies of this world. For those who are abused at the hands of another. For the children who grow up watching it, later becoming the abuser and the abused, always the cycles, those sins of the fathers! For those families torn apart by divorce. For the shocking cruelty humans can show one another. I long for Jesus to return, to wash this world of its sin.

My house began to reflect the chaos within. Odd how those habits which take so long to create can be dropped so quickly, dishes piling up, floors unswept, washing machine sitting idle, mornings beginning as untidily as they ended the night before. Interesting, too, how such outward chaos only feeds that within, not only for myself but for the rest of my family.

Again, always, it comes back to one thing: deliberation. Living with intention, with purpose, fully present in the moment.

And so I pull us back towards peace.

Simplicity

I clear away the clutter, climb back on top of the housework, and once again witness the calming effect that order and simplicity have on a family. I remind myself of the influence a mother has over her household. If I turn myself over to idleness, the rest follow suit. If I speak harshly and am quick to anger, my attitude is adopted by the rest. If I choose that which is easy over that which is good, I lead the rest down the same path. At times, this responsibility lays heavy and threatens to overwhelm, but I know that I must shoulder it nonetheless.

Routine

I begin to shape our days into a comforting routine. The go-with-the-flow infant days are over; my antsy preschooler and his distractable mama need a rhythm we can flow with through the days. A predictable beginning, middle, and end, with room to wander as life leads us, will lend stability and peace to our lives.

The Word

I return to my first Love, beginning our days with physical food followed by the living bread of God's Word. I sip tea from my favourite mug, warm under a blanket, and murmur the words aloud. My young audience comes and goes, sitting near me to listen for a while, then running off to play, soon back again to hear more.

It's not the quiet time I once knew, but I'm learning to work with this new reality.


"'The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.' Baby, I see you crawling towards the stairs..."

*excited baby squeal*


"'As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is flawless. He is a shield for all who take refuge in him. For who is God besides the LORD? And who is the Rock except our God? It is God who-'"

"Help, I'm stuck! Mommy, let me out, I'm stuck!"


"'This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God. After this, Jesus and his disciples-' No, sweetheart, the baby can't have one of your candies."

"But I wanted to share with him!"


Such is life, my life, and I praise God for it - for these two adorable little "interruptions", for the guiding light of His Word, and for His peace that passes all understanding.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13)

Community

Last night was another wonderful night of studying the Bible with a small group of friends from our church. As always, the evening was made even better by the presence of our children amidst us. No childcare needed - just a group of people who occasionally glance down to smile at the children playing at our feet. Every time we get there, the boy and his friend start squealing and jumping up and down before grabbing hands and running off to play with her toys or chase each other around the house. As we start our prayer and study, the kids quiet down (as quiet as a couple of toddlers can be, anyway!) and the babies sit on their mama's laps or nurse at their mama's breasts.

We're quite the collection - a few couples of various ages and several single university and seminary students. It's not a "mom's group" or a "couple's group" or a "college group" or a "parents' group", and yet no one frowns at the giggling children or asks the nursing mothers to cover up or leave the room. (How will breastfeeding ever become the norm in our society again if we continue to hide away in bathrooms, spare rooms, or vehicles whenever our babies need to nurse, as though we're performing some "necessary evil" in feeding our children, something shameful, something indecent, something to be covered up? Society needs to see breastfeeding mothers doing just that - breastfeeding!) It is so encouraging as a mother to be openly welcomed into a beautifully mixed group of people, and to have my children welcomed along with me.

This is what we have been searching for - a community that we can be a part of. People bound not by some common age or stage in life, but rather people of all ages and stages bound by love for each other and love for our Saviour. People who can be honest and real with each other, cry in front of each other, share our struggles and joys and triumphs with each other, learn from each other, and pray for each other.

I'm not an outgoing person. I'm an introvert, and painfully shy on top of that. I'm pretty happy to sit at home all day - but I know this is not how we were designed to live. We were designed to live in community. Community, though, is no longer easy to come by. Raised from birth to be "independent", we have become a society of individuals who pride themselves on relying on no one but themselves.

How's that working out for us? Not so well, I'd venture to say. Staggering divorce rates suggest a distinct lack of healthy married role models. Youth seek connection in sexual relationships before they've even reached double digit ages. Mothers are so overwhelmed by raising children without support that they resort to leaving their babies to cry because they just can't handle it anymore. Increasing rates of post-partum depression further decry this isolation. We were not made to do it all on our own!

Where are the older married couples to guide and encourage the younger? Where are the close family relationships that meet a child's need for connection? Where are the sisters, mothers, aunts, grandmothers, and friends to help the overwhelmed mother with the tasks of raising her children and running her household? I want these things for my children. I need these things for myself!

And so, homebody that I am, I seek community. I seek it for myself, I seek it for my marriage, I seek it for my children. And in this jumbled collection of Christ-followers, I have found it - community, in all it's raw and heartfelt beauty.

I have found it elsewhere, too. Online communities, like the wonderful ladies at Gentle Christian Mothers, have helped me through these early years of motherhood. A smaller online community that I have been a part of for the past few years, consisting of beautiful ladies like Melody, Adrian, and Nicole, has provided friendship, accountability, prayer support, challenging discussions, and a deeper study of God's Word. Blogs and message boards have allowed me to keep in touch with friends I've moved away from (like the lovely Trace), form new friendships (like the inspiring Karyn), and delve into a wealth of information (like the infamous Annie of PhD in Parenting).

Finally, far-flung though they may be, we seek community in our extended family. We may no longer have the multi-generational family under one roof, as was (wisely, I think) done in the past, but we can maintain those important connections despite the distance that separates us.

It may not be as easy to find community as it once was, but it is no less important - perhaps moreso, even, in the society we have become. Intentional community requires deliberate action, time, effort, vulnerability, honesty, and grace.

And for some of us, it means putting aside our introvert ways and pushing through our shyness to reach out to others - for the sake of ourselves, our families, our children, and our society.

IComLeavWe

Tomorrow marks the beginning of IComLeavWe - International Comment Leaving Week!

While IComLeavWe runs every month from the 21st to the 28th, they have joined up with NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) for the week of November 21-28. The idea is simple - every day, leave 5 comments on other blogs and return one comment that's been left on your site lately. That's six comments a day for a week.

What a fun way to build community! Community is something that has been on my mind a lot lately (expect a blog entry in the future!), so it feels timely for me to participate. Unofficially though, I think - I feel less obligated that way, and more free to leave comments simply for the sake of it. Maybe I'm just weird that way, but external motivation tends to make me feel guilty, as though I'm only doing something because I'm supposed to rather than because I want to. Way to overanalyze the whole thing, eh?

Anyway, I hope you'll join me, meet some fellow bloggers, and brighten someone's day with an unexpected comment!

Finding my place

(This is a bit of a continuation of my last post.)

These past two years have been years of discovery and change, to the point where I no longer feel at home, well, anywhere within the Christian community.

I suppose, though I now cringe to admit it, I would previously have described myself as being on the very conservative side of conservative Christianity. If it was "conservative", I was there - and the more conservative, the better. And clearly anyone who disagreed with some part of conservative Christianity was just using that as an excuse to not have to be obedient in that particular area - a sentiment I still hear almost daily from the conservative side of Christianity.

Gratefully, and by the mercy of God, I no longer feel that way myself. Slowly I began to see the things that weren't quite "right" with that ultra-conservative ideology - first one thing, then another, then more and more until what I had previously felt at home with now looked so completely foreign to me that I could no longer abide with it.

Now I see it everywhere. It seems glaringly obvious to me, this ideology that appears so "biblical" on the surface and yet, digging deeper, is often nothing more than excess burdens imposed by man, a need to keep up with the Joneses, a competition, mere outward appearance.

I know I linked to this series in my previous entry, but Taunya really hit the nail on the head early on in her first installment of The Marketing of the Titus 2 Woman:

This month we must wear skirts only, the next we must purchase an 1868 dictionary, the next we must only read from the King James version of the Bible, the next month KJV is out and it must be the ESV or else we are reading heresy. By the middle of the year we must change our homeschooling curriculum because the one we are using is not Christian enough, by early summer we must all have our children stop dating and read the latest book on courtship, by mid-summer we are going to hell if our daughters even look at a college with interest. By then end of summer even our sons need to stay out of college in favor of an apprenticeship. By fall we must all put on clothes from the 1860's and admit that the South was right all along and Lincoln is the worse thing to ever befall this great nation of ours. By Thanksgiving we had all better be trying to have as many children as the Duggars (currently they have 18) or else we are not as godly as we think we are. By Christmas if we find we cannot have that many children we had better adopt that many. By New Years we need to have all of our children (dressed alike I might add) lined up according to size and ready to leave our church of 10 years to head to that Family-Integrated one down the road. What is a Family-Integrated church? Wow! if you don't know you aren't as godly as you thought you were. Finally and most importantly our husband must immediately be able to teach us and our children theology on a seminary level or else he is clearly a backslidder who does not love his family!

The hardest part in untangling it all is that it is all based - very loosely! - on biblical principles. Start with one verse or biblical principal, ignore the context, build up a whole set of rules around it, and presto! One more man-made burden to take on in the name of being "godly" - and shake your head ruefully at any who don't jump on the bandwagon right behind you.

So much of it I can no longer stomach. The patriocentric movement. The quiverful movement. The "biblical method" of parenting - I feel physically sick to read some of the descriptions. (And these are parents who truly love their children and mean well, earnestly desiring to raise godly children! If only they could see the damage they are doing - like the quivering daughters they leave behind.) The proliferation of "Titus 2" and "Biblical Womanhood" and "Biblical Femininity" writings, and the even greater abundance of women who form their ideas of biblical living based on such writings, turning their families' lives upside down every time they step away from the newest blog post or book. The "one size fits all" approach to everything. Our ("godly") way or the highway. The legalism that drenches it all.

As I said, I could never feel at home there again. Which is funny, because I do most of the things they preach - I just do them for different reasons, and I don't believe they should necessarily be universally applied to all Christians. I am a skirt-wearing, birth-control-avoiding, homeschooling, living-lightly mama with a marriage that most conservatives would approve of. And yet I firmly disagree with patriarchy, I don't believe it is a sin to take steps to conceive or to avoid conception provided the couple is following the promptings of the Holy Spirit and not the flesh, I don't think it is sinful for women to wear pants, and I understand that someone can be both Christian and send their children to public schools!

But I don't fit in with the liberal end of Christianity either. I do believe there is Absolute Truth. I do believe there is one way to God, through Jesus Christ, His Son and our Saviour. I do believe the Bible is true, inerrant, and historically factual. I do believe that homosexuality is a sin - while sincerely loving the person and welcoming them into fellowship. I do believe there are fundamental differences between a man and a woman - while wholeheartedly rejecting the teachings of patriarchy.

The evangelical movement. The health and wealth gospel. The emergent movement. I can't find any footing in any of them either. There seems to be no one set "type" of Christian that I can identify with - and many days I am so disappointed by what I see in the church that I wish there was some other way altogether of identifying myself as a follower of Jesus Christ.

(And, of course, there is no one defined "conservative" or "liberal" or "evangelical" or "emergent" or "_____" Christian - there are all sorts of people within each - which only makes it harder to find solid footing or to discuss any particular ideology in any sort of fruitful manner.)

Sometimes it can be difficult to avoid throwing out the baby with the bathwater, if you'll pardon the cliché, but I have sought earnestly to be cautious that, while turning away from the extrabiblical principles of conservative Christianity, I don't leave behind the true biblical principles at the same time. So that's where I'm at right now - continually digging, searching, praying, looking for the Truth in a religion that has strayed so far from where it should be. Walking away from religous teachings and back to the Bible and the welcoming arms of the Creator Who left it for us. Giving my life to God, not to a movement or doctrine.

Relearning Grace - grace from God, grace for others, and grace for myself.

Grace, sweet grace.

Perceptions

I've been pondering the idea of self-perception versus the perception others have of us for quite while now. I mentioned recently that I'd often been labeled as "stuck-up" in the past because of how painfully shy I was. I knew that I wasn't stuck-up, I knew that I was just too horribly shy to talk to other people - but they didn't. They just knew that I kept to myself and didn't talk to them.

Last year a group of moms in our church had a weekly meeting where we could get together with our kids and let them play at our feet while we did a Bible study. We discussed the fruits of the Spirit over the course of the year:

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law."
Galatians 5:22-23

On the day we discussed self-control, we considered whether it maybe meant not just controlling in the sense of holding back, but in the sense of taking action as well. People often talk, for example, of having self-control over what they eat - which generally means restraint. Or self-control in the sense of not hitting someone when you're angry. But maybe, it was suggested, it means forcing ourselves to do things we don't necessarily want to do, rather than just not doing things we do want to do. Maybe, for example, it would include forcing ourselves to talk with people and carry a conversation despite this not being something we're generally comfortable with.

I've thought about that a lot since then. I think I've come a long way over the past two or three years. I still have a long way to go - I always will, in some area or another - but I've discovered a sense of self-confidence that was most definitely lacking in prior years. I've become better at initiating and carrying conversation. I've become less easily intimidated, less sensitive, more calm, okay with the fact that not everyone is going to like me. So maybe I'm less likely to be thought of as being stuck-up now (or maybe I'm more likely - eek!), but I've little doubt that other perceptions have risen up to take its place.

With that in mind, I find myself wondering - does it matter what others think of us? I grew up hearing that it doesn't - forget what they say, you know yourself, just ignore them, they're wrong about you, it doesn't matter what other people think.

But why do they think those things about us? And if that's the perception we're giving off - regardless of how true it is - shouldn't we care? Shouldn't we do something to change the way we come off? Why are we generally thought of as being [fill in the blank] - selfish, spoiled, hypocritical, self-righteous, callous, uncaring, stuck-up, whatever - despite not seeing those things in ourself? Maybe we should care what others think after all.

Forgive the rambliness and lack of clarity of these thoughts...I'm not sure where exactly I'm going with them. They're just some thoughts I've been pondering over the past few months. Now, to figure out what to do with them...the hardest part being, I suppose, figuring out just what others' perceptions of me are in the first place.