One day Punchinello met a Wemmick who was unlike any he’d ever met. She had no dots or stars. She was just wooden. Her name was Lucia.

It wasn’t that people didn’t try to give her stickers; it’s just that the stickers didn’t stick. Some of the Wemmicks admired Lucia for having no dots, so they would run up and give her a star. But it would fall off.

Others would look down on her for having no stars, so they would give her a dot. But it wouldn’t stay either.

That’s the way I want to be, thought Punchinello. I don’t want anyone’s marks.

The school year is winding down, and as Jen Hatmaker so BRILLIANTLY summarized yesterday, we are limping to the end. We are all so done, so ready to be home for the summer. My older two have had an especially rough year. Lots of frustration, lots of opportunity for character development—which, of course, sucks. We’re all done with challenge and stretching and growing, thankyouverymuch. Bring on the lazy mornings and sunscreen.

Last week, I spent my final Monday morning with my 1^st grade babies at the Title I school where I have volunteered for the last three years. These kids. Mercy. They walk in the door every day with the odds stacked against them, but they push through anyway. Some of them barely knew their letter sounds at the beginning of the year. Now they are reading at the required grade level. I have much to learn from these boys and girls.

On my last day, I bring each child a wrapped copy of You are Special, by Max Lucado. They excitedly open them together, and then I read the story to them as they follow along in their own books. I have grand, imaginative dreams of these kids reading these books every day, remembering how much I love them, how special they are. I daydream about one day when they’re older, finding the book under the bed or in the closet, and exclaiming, “oh, I love this book! Mrs. Hunt gave me this book! I remember her!” And then sitting down to read it again, finally recognizing the truth in the allegory.

But maybe they won’t. And that’s okay too.

You Are Special is the story of Punchinello, a wooden person living in a village of wooden people who walk around all day sticking golden stars or gray dots on each other, depending on how fabulous or miserable they assess each other to be. Poor Punchinello is covered in gray dots, which he hates almost as much as he hates himself. Then he meets Lucia, and when he asks her why the stickers don’t stick on her, she points him to Eli, the woodcarver who made all the Wemmicks. Punchinello visits Eli in his workshop, and discovers that “the stickers only stick if they matter to you. The more you trust my love,” Eli tells him, “the less you care about their stickers.”

So Punchinello agrees to return to Eli’s workshop every day so the woodcarver can remind him how much he cares, how special and unique and precious Punchinello is. And as he leaves the workshop, a gray dot falls to the ground.

Cue: snot and tears.

As I wrote earlier, my pursuit of shame resilience has begun. I’ve started recognizing the voices of shame and scarcity—of not being worthy of love and belonging, of not being enough—for what they are: big fat lies. I’ve fought them off with words of truth: I Am Enough. I Am Worthy. God has created me and purposed me for great things, and for that reason alone, the opinions of others will not move me.

In theory, of course. Announcing to the universe that I refuse to be shamed swings open the door and invites shame to come in. That’s just how it works. But I’m ready for it.

We are a hurt and damaged people, surrounded by those who are also hurt and damaged. And what do the hurt and damaged people do? They fill their pockets and purses with gray dot stickers, ready to stick one on the nearest hurt and damaged target. Max Lucado forgot to mention one tiny detail about these gray dots: the underside of the stickers carry sharp barbs that hurt.

I was slapped with two gray dots last week. One was labeled Bad Mom. The other was Spoiled and Indulgent. Both hit me at my weakest, most tender place of insecurity. It stung. Badly.

But not for long. Instead of my default self-doubt and flagellation, I actually remembered what I read and flicked them off with empowered self-talk and truth. I Am Enough. I Am Worthy. I Am Created and Purposed.

And that was that.

Seriously? It’s that easy? Yeah, it kinda is, I guess. I’m a little surprised.

The gray dots kept trying to jump back on my skin (sneaky little suckers, they are), but the more I flicked them off, the less sticky they became. Imagine that.

The greater quest is teaching my kids shame resilience. You would think that would be easier than conquering shame yourself—after all, they have far fewer years of listening to the voices of shame. But they also have not developed a full sense of identity yet, and their insecurities are more susceptible to lies. Their tender, thin skin multiplies the pain of the barbs. Which only confirms what we already suspected: this parenting gig is not for wimps.

We have to be the kind of people we wish our children to be. They have to see us fighting shame and scarcity, building resilience, listening to truth. They need to hear about our battles so they can find the courage to take up the sword. And we have to speak truth into their lives over and over and over until they believe us—even when they roll their sweet little eyes to the heavens and wonder why their parents are completely whacko.

I tiptoed upstairs last night before going to bed to tell Meghan good-night. She had just turned on the water for her shower, but I asked her to turn it off and sit on her bed with me. “Okaaaaay,” she said with a suspicious, guarded smile.

I put my arm around her and handed her the baby blankets she pretends she doesn’t have anymore. “I want to read you a story. I haven’t read you a bedtime story in a really long time.”

“Okaaaaay,” she said. My mom has officially lost her mind, she was thinking.

So I began.

“The Wemmicks were small wooden people carved by a woodworker named Eli…”

I’m beginning to understand why parents of teenagers have that look. Why their faces sag, why their smiles are tight, why their hair is gray. I’m beginning to understand the dark circles and baggy skin framing their glazed, reddish eyes.

Parenting a teenager is exhausting.

This is the same song, four hundredth verse. We’ve talked about this before. Parenting babies and toddlers and preschoolers demands time and mental energy. Somebody always needs something, and you are the only one on the planet who can possibly satisfy their whims. (Or at least they think you are.) The little buggers suck the life right out of you, sometimes quite literally. It’s a round-the-clock job with no sick days, no pay, no pension. It’s a good thing they’re so cute, otherwise we’d eat them.

And just as the waters calm, just as you catch your breath, after they can tie their own shoes and wipe their own backsides, after they make their own lunches and brush their own teeth—then the fun really begins.

Teenagers, I am discovering, still need us. They pretend like they don’t, and often they don’t realize it, but they do. Hugely. Parenting a teenager is a delicate dance, a push and pull, give and take. Their job is to separate themselves from us and grow into adults. Our job is to protect them, to guide them through that process of gradual independence. The sacred space between them and us, between separation and protection, is sticky. Scary. Wrought with tension and hurt feelings.

I have such a great kid. Really. She is responsible, compassionate, kind, independent, funny. She makes good decisions and good grades. I never rarely worry about her. She’s always been that way.

There aren’t many contentious issues between us—except one. Her phone. Lord have mercy, her phone. Many times, I would like to chuck that blasted thing across the room until it disintegrates into a million tiny pieces…but that wouldn’t solve anything. Teenagers and phones are here to stay, so I need to adjust to life on this new planet and make it work.

For better or worse, a teenager’s phone tethers her to her world. She uses it to connect with her friends in the same way her mom used to pass notes in the hallway between classes. But, if you stretch your brain to remember those days, the worst scenario involving a note would be your teacher confiscating and reading it to the class, or the neatly folded notebook paper falling into the wrong hands and word-of-mouth rumors spread. Horror.

Today, a teenager’s text message—the note equivalent—can go viral in a matter of seconds, opening the door to all kinds of devastating mess. Or a teenager could be easily and incessantly harassed, bullied, threatened, pilloried. The stakes are much higher, the consequences steeper. Even a good kid (especially a good kid) can get entangled in something horrific before she realizes what is happening.

The icing on this scrumptious cake is social networking, which is texting on meth. The two conjoined make parenting a teenager that much more fun.

So we’re navigating these waters, learning how much freedom to give her, how much protection to insist upon. Apparently (according to her) we’re the only awful parents in the world who check their teenager’s phone, read her texts and tweets, and enforce a phone curfew. She hates that. She has a visceral, angry, defensive reaction every time I ask for her phone. The phone draws the battle lines like nothing else in our home. I hate that.

Reading her texts, I realize, would be the equivalent of my mom digging through my Liz Claiborne purse when I was a teenager and reading my notes. I would be mortified. I would likely yell and scream and slam many-a-door. I get that.

But this new world of technology is very different from the world we grew up in, and the boundary between privacy and protection is much more blurry. I’m normally a very hands-off, Love&Logic kind of parent—but the phone scares the sugar bits out of me, and Mama Bear comes out swinging. There’s more pull than push, more take than give. This is a nonnegotiable.

As an alternative to nightly phone checks, I tried installing a monitoring software. The attempted installation kept me up til 1:30 am and ended up An Epic Fail. Blasted iOS updates. They don’t like to be jailbroken, which is the only way to install undetectable programs. So I was back to phone checks. Which she still hated almost as much as monitoring software. Which led to more battle lines and challenges and tears.

One night, Meghan and I grabbed the rope and began our tug-of-war-of-words:

“You don’t have to check my phone!”

“It’s a scary world!”

“You don’t trust me!”

“No, I do trust you. I don’t trust everyone else.”

“It’s my phone!”

“Which we pay for!”

“I would tell you if something was going on!”

“How do I know that? You don’t talk to us!”

After we ranted and vented and cried, we both took a breath. “I can’t do this anymore.” I sighed. “I can’t keep having the same argument over and over and over. I need you to trust me, and I need to be able to trust you. What can we do to trust each other more?” I asked. “What do you need from me?”

She grew quiet. “I need you to ask me about my friends. Ask me about what happened at lunch. Ask me what I’m reading in my devotionals. Ask me when I have a test. I’ve always been the kid you don’t have to worry about—but I need you to be interested in my life.”

I stared at her, stunned. I had prided myself in being so hands-off that I couldn’t see she needs more hands-on. My Love & Logic parenting had quietly morphed into disengagement. And it was killing both of us.

Not coincidentally, I picked up a new book right before this conversation occurred.

Disengagement is a defense mechanism birthed from shame. Daring Greatly is about recognizing the voices of Shame (“I am not worthy”) and Scarcity (“I am not ______ enough) and developing resilience so we can have the courage to be vulnerable. Vulnerability and courage allow us to live wholeheartedly. Unearthing our weaknesses and exposing them to light disarms their power over us. Daring to take emotional risks by connecting ourselves to others frees us.

No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough…Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.

It is a game-changer. I’ve underlined and starred and arrowed and bracketed every other sentence. So many of her insights sound like a clanging bell or a bull horn or the shrill of a whistle: “THIS! THIS IS YOU! CAN YOU SEE IT? THIS DEFINES EVERY INTIMACY ISSUE YOU HAVE! THIS EXPLAINS WHY YOU ARE SUCH A HOT MESS! AND GUESS WHAT? YOU CAN FIX IT!”

For example:

With children, actions speak louder than words. When we stop requesting invitations into their lives by asking about their day, asking them to tell us about their favorite songs, wondering how their friends are doing, then children feel pain and fear (and not relief, despite how our teenagers may act). Because they can’t articulate how they feel about our disengagement when we stop making an effort with them, they show us by acting out, thinking ‘this will get their attention.’

I read that paragraph the day after The Conversation. BAM.

Disengagement—checking out, not caring, withdrawing from interpersonal connection—develops when we feel shame and scarcity. When we think we’re not good enough, when we’re not worthy. When we’re afraid of being hurt, of being disappointed. When we’re afraid that opening ourselves will only confirm our fears that we really, truly suck. (Those are my words, not hers.) It’s our armor, our defense, our protective wall. Living defensively is the opposite of living vulnerably and wholeheartedly.

That’s how I’ve lived my entire life. And that’s how I’ve related to my husband and my kids and my friends and my acquaintances. Don’t get too close because I cannot survive another person telling me I’m not good enough. I think that’s why Ferber and Babywise and Love & Logic resonated so loudly in my parenting. Separation works for me.

When I am most afraid, when I peek behind the wall and consider venturing out, this is what I hear:

Lower your voice, Jennifer. You’re too loud.

Save it for the stage, Jennifer. You’re so dramatic.

I think we need to date other people. You’re not enough for me.

Your friendship isn’t worth the effort anymore. You’re too difficult.

No wonder no one wants to date you. You’re so loud and obnoxious. 

Stop being so selfish.

You let your kids get away with that? You’re such a bad mother.

Therefore, I mostly stay inside myself—striking a Heisman pose, holding my heart close and keeping everyone else at arm’s length.

My friends who have met me within the last fifteen years have a very hard time believing I used to be really loud and outgoing. I was. And I learned that such a personality only earned me scorn and loneliness—so now I’m not. Shame killed that part of me. I remember too many times I opened my mouth a little too widely and spoke a little too much, and I am—there’s no other word for it—ashamed. So I constructed a very large, very strong wall around me. Also, I stopped talking. Just for extra protection. I can’t be ashamed of what I say or how I act if I keep quiet.

No more. The walls are tumblin’ down, my friends. It may take a while to deconstruct, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be loud and obnoxious again (you’re welcome)—but I do know that I will be a better wife, a better mom, a better friend when I lean into that frightening space and say This is me. This is who I am. Come into my world and join me. If you’ll let me, I’ll also walk with you where you are, in your sacred space. Let’s tell each other The Truth, and let’s not be afraid anymore.

The voices of shame better watch their backs. They will be met with a resounding I AM ENOUGH, AND I AM WORTH IT. They will not withstand the loud retort, I AM CREATED AND LOVED BY GOD HIMSELF, AND NOTHING WILL CHANGE THAT. I am purchased, sealed, and purposed for greater things than fear and isolation. Much greater things. Things that require risk and courage, things that allow fullness and connection and fulfillment.

What does this have to do with teenagers and phones and exhaustion? Everything. They need to see our weaknesses and our insecurities so they don’t feel so alone. And they need to see us fighting the voices of shame so they can find the courage to do the same. They need to know that we are a safe place for them to be real, to be honest. They need to trust us with their secrets and maybe—just maybe—their trust will lead to less phone checks and more conversations.

I don’t want my kids to inherit my brokenness. I want them to resist the voices of shame with the voices of truth. I told Meghan, “You are going to get tired of hearing me say this, and I know you don’t believe me, but I’m going to keep saying it anyway. YOU ARE ENOUGH. Just as you are.” She rolled her eyes, but I think I glimpsed a smile, too.

I’m still checking her phone, by the way. We’re still navigating that space between independence and freedom, responsibility and trust. It’s still hard. But we’re also talking more. I’m asking more questions, and she’s willingly giving more answers, more insight into that precious heart of hers. Like every other teenage girl (and woman) on the planet, she struggles. She’s afraid. But she’s not alone, and together we will Dare Greatly to embrace our vulnerability, our courage, our completeness.

A few years ago, I tumbled down a slippery slope of awesomeness called coffee. Really, it was Gretchen’s fault. We were on our annual family vacation together, and she handed me a Frappaccino, henceforth known as The Gateway Drug To Full-Blown Coffee Addiction. Michael was offended. I was finally awake.

It was as if I missed something in our wedding vows: for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health; I promise to enjoy only the aroma of coffee and never undermine our marital identity as non-coffee consumers.

I caressed my coffee mug, cooing over its blessed, caffeine-infused goodness.

“But we don’t drink coffee!” Michael insisted. As if I was committing the ultimate betrayal. His entire existence, everything he knew to be true, was called into question.

He’s been saving up, as those passive-aggressive types tend to do. He’s been biding his time, waiting for his moment to throw his own wrench into eighteen years of rock-solid marital certainty. Last weekend, he seized his chance.

Michael went hunting.

Like, for the first time. Ever. Y’all. It’s like I don’t even know him.

“But we don’t shoot things!” I insisted when he came home with his new hunting license. We don’t own guns. We don’t like guns. Guns are bad. Eyeballs are good. The two don’t mix. The end.

Meghan, our save-the-earth, animal activist, borderline vegetarian, was incredulous. “You’re what?!?” She shook her head. “Unbelievable.”

(I’m trying really hard to convert my kids into my bleeding heart liberal ways of thinking. I think it’s working.)

I realize I’m in the minority here, especially in the (cough, cough) Great State of Texas. You don’t mess with guns, litter, beer, corporations or taxes. No sirree. That’s the way it’s always been, and that’s the way it will always be. So I mostly keep my mouth shut and keep my progressive, slightly liberal ideologies to myself. Except when my beloved picks up a rifle and tries to shoot Bambi.

His partners (and by that, I mean business partners, just to be clear) take a “practice retreat” every spring. Please imagine my air quotes here. They pretend to need an entire weekend to evaluate their scheme to conquer the world, one eyeball at a time—but really, they are merely finding an excuse to leave their wives and children for the weekend, eat lots of barely cooked red meat, and hit golf balls.

Or, apparently, kill stuff.

Dr. E and Dr. A have been killing stuff for a while, and they teach their kids to kill stuff. They have the camouflage gear and calls and lures to attract Bambi’s mama to a perfect spot where they can take her out. They bought some acreage last year where they can spend lots of time killing stuff. Which is where they insisted upon taking Michael.

He tried to pacify me, even though I’m already a pacifist. “I’m only going to see what all the fuss is about. It will be fun, and it will be good time with my friends, but I won’t do it again. Probably.”

I facepalmed. “Who are you?”

We met when we were eighteen and nineteen years old—which is, holy crap, only four years older than our eldest child. We were babies. We didn’t drink coffee. We didn’t kill stuff. We didn’t know yet who we were or who we would become. Obviously, we’re still figuring that out—though we have a much better idea now.

Coffee and Bambi notwithstanding, much of what we believed twenty-one years ago we have set aside. What we valued, how we saw people, how we saw the world—that’s all different now, in a good way. I’m glad it’s different. I’m much more comfortable in my skin now. What I’ve decided I believe about God, about people, about the world, sits right with me now. I don’t have it all figured out, and I’m content knowing I never will. The painful shades of gray don’t frighten me any more—though I still wish they were a little more black and a little more white.

Michael, too, has changed, and as a married couple, we have evolved and morphed together. There are many issues—mostly political—about which we respectfully disagree, and we allow our kids to form their own opinions. But the core issues of faith and compassion, service and generosity, have knit us together, binding us to each other. Our eighteen and nineteen year old selves probably wouldn’t recognize us. They would quite possibly be perplexed, dismayed, disgusted. But they haven’t yet seen what we’ve seen. They don’t yet know. They can’t yet understand.

Years of questions and doubts, icy plunges into shades of gray, frightening journeys through darkness—all those have formed our perspectives and bound us together. We are united on the things that matter…which is precisely why I can drink coffee and Michael can shoot a turkey (or wish that he had), and we can still be okay.

But helpmebabyJesus if he ever comes home in cammo or attempts to mount an animal on a wall. I will take my coffee and run.

Among the great mysteries of the universe (Why are we here? Why do we have earlobes? Why do men have nipples? What is the purpose of spiders and mosquitos?) is this:

How can one family of five, having moved three times in eight years and executed massive purging with each move, still have SO MUCH CRAP?

I mean, seriously. I am so not a hoarder. I regularly clean out and clean up, and we have thrown away/given away boxes and boxes and boxes of unneeded, unwanted, unused stuff almost every year—especially when we move.

Yet, great mystery of the universe, I still managed to fill my mid-sized SUV floor-to-ceiling FOUR TIMES with garage sale fodder. After the garage sale, I STILL found more stuff we could (and should) dump. Where did all this stuff come from?

It felt SO GOOD to get rid of it all. I went through every room, every closet, every cabinet and pulled out the things we don’t use and don’t need. Y’all. The Purge was extraordinarily exhilarating. The more I pulled out, the freer I felt.

Once upon a time, two stupid early-twenty-somethings decided to get married. Not yet knowing themselves and who they would eventually be, they rode the coattails of their parents’ ideas of what they would need to live and entertain. So they registered at ninety-seven different stores (hyperbole, folks) for all kinds of crap pretty things. Silver serving bowls, platters, candelabras, candlesticks, water pitchers, and utensils. Ditto in crystal and glass. Ditto in brass. (It was 1995.)

(Bride’s very southern mother may or may not have advised, “You are going to be a doctor’s wife. You will be hosting dinner parties. You must register for nice things!” Insert gagging and retching.)

Number of invitations mailed: 800. (Sadly, that is no hyperbole.) And, of course, invitation = gift = thank you note, which is another blog post for another day.

So we ended up with a lot of pretty stuff, for which we were very thankful.

Number of times (most of) above items have been used: ZERO. In eighteen years, my friends. That’s a long time to be entangled in the Devil’s Snare of silver and crystal crap.

It’s just not our style. Silver and crystal worked well for our parents, but it’s not us. We love white ceramic in clean, simple lines. We really love our wooden plates from the Florida Gulf Coast. We have been known to serve from a pot on the stove. With a plastic spoon.

The heart of our home is not fancy, pretty serving pieces and expensive decor. The heart of our home is you are welcomed and celebrated and valued here, just as you are. We want you to see us in all our glorious mess so you don’t feel pressured to wear a mask. Leave your armor at the door. No pretense, no fuss. Simply you and us, and savory morsels of food and conversation.

Now please don’t misinterpret my meaning. Some people love fancy dinners with fancy dishes as a way of honoring their guests. Bravo, I say. (When can I come over for dinner?) If silver and crystal is your thing, by all means, polish it up and place it carefully on your buffet. Celebrate your guests and affirm their value by treating them like royalty. Nothing wrong with that.

It’s just not my style. I gravitate toward the dishwasher-safe and disposable. But that’s just me.

So most all of our pretties went to the garage sale. We saved a couple of pieces, but not much. Along with all the other crap from all the other rooms, plus additional crap we collected from a couple of generous friends, we raised $465 for Meghan’s trip to Vietnam this summer. She, along with Michael and her best friend Alex, will work alongside other students from our church to love on the kids from an orphanage there—one our church has served several times a year for the past fifteen years. I’d say that silver is put to much better use in Vietnam than sitting in my dining room cabinet collecting dust and tarnish. Bonus: since the money was designated for Meghan’s trip fund, guess who got to organize, tag, and polish all the silver lovelies? That’s right, my darling, polish away. You missed a spot.

Let’s talk garage sales. We borrowed a friend’s driveway in a large neighborhood since our house sits somewhere between Nowhere and Timbuktu, and getting garage sale traffic would be a challenge. So, admittedly, driving all our stuff across town (four times) added a little bit of stress and exhaustion. The sale lasted all weekend—Friday morning through Sunday, though I arrived Friday after dropping off my kids at school, and we wrapped things up Saturday after lunch. I had to grab a Hello Kitty blanket from the sale to wrap around my legs because it was FREAKIN’ COLD. IN APRIL. IN TEXAS. (Until, of course, the last twenty minutes when we were packing up. Then the sun came out and turned my neck a precious shade of magenta.) But we sucked it up for the sake of offering treasure to the suburban gods of crap. And for the Vietnamese orphans.

Garage salers are hawks, man. You don’t mess with them folk. They know how to hunt and kill and walk away having paid next to nothing for their glorious treasures. And the ones who came to our sale struck gold. Not only did we have all kinds of stuff to give away sell, I would take any price for any item. By the end, I was (almost) willing to pay them to take our stuff.

Garage Saler (holding a pair of 3T pants): How much?

Me: All clothes are a dollar.

GS: You take fifty cents?

Me: Here’s a bag. Fill it with as many clothes as you can. Three bucks.

Or.

GS (holding a silver candelabra): How much?

Me: Ten bucks?

(GS puts it back on table.)

Me: Five dollars! One dollar! You can have it for free! Wait! Come back!

After it was all over, I took one carload directly to Goodwill, and a second carload of clothes back home. The clothes will all be donated to different charities who will give them to people who need them and will wear them. (Dropping off clothes at Goodwill or Salvation Army with good intentions is fine, but the reality is that most of their donated clothing gets shipped overseas to be shredded and/or stuffed into carseats or landfills.)

Then I went upstairs and watched six hours of mindless television while eating chocolate. (So much for that “media fast.”) Have mercy, that was exactly what I needed. No one dared talk to me or bother me because, you know, all the words. Two days of chit-chat and bargaining and begging does one weary mama make. I don’t remember much else about the weekend.

When I peeled myself off of the recliner, I looked at my empty shelves and closets. Glory. It made me so happy. I slept free and content that night. And here’s the crazy thing: I’ve been to Target twice since then (Meghan needed clothes), and walking through all the aisles of shiny, colorful gadgets and pictures and doo-wops, I had exactly zero desire to buy any of it. Can I get a witness? Seriously! None of it! I so delighted in my empty spaces that the thought of filling them back up with more stuff (that would end up at a garage sale in three years) was…meh. Didn’t want it. Don’t need it. Didn’t buy it.

This is the place I want to stay, to make my permanent home. I can’t guarantee that I won’t take an occasional vacation to the Land of Useless Crap, but I hope I’ll be warm enough and content enough and free enough within the walls of my new dwelling that I won’t leave it often. It’s nice here. There’s room to move, room to breathe, room to relax—uncluttered, unencumbered, unstressed.

Candelabras optional.

Last week was heartbreakingly crazy, no? First Boston, then West, and all kinds of un-newsworthy madness in between.

West is a special place for me because when we were college sweethearts, Michael and I would drive there from Waco to go dancing. Specifically, kicker dancing at the West Fraternal Auditorium (which has since closed) because it wasn’t quite as skanky or smoky as Melody Ranch (which is now a Tejano bar). Never mind that I two-stepped in my tasseled Etienne Aigner loafers instead of real boots. I was a Collins girl. Those familiar with Baylor are now rolling their eyes. I didn’t own my first pair of boots until last year, which I have worn exactly one time. Also? I pronounced the name of my shoes Agner until somewhere close to 2003. That’s my mom’s fault.

None of this has anything to do with West. It has slightly more than nothing to do with this week’s chapter from The 7 Experiment: Possessions.

For this two week fast, I went room-to-room through my house and purged as much as I could. I didn’t set a number because I can’t count that high. Nothing was safe. Shockingly, we still had stuff to purge, even after moving three times in five years and doing a major clean-out each time.

I vividly remember when I was growing up, my mother would walk into a room and screech, “I CAN’T STAND ALL THIS CLUTTER!”—and then she would count (while pointing out) the number of shoes I had scattered over two rooms and threaten tremendous bodily harm if I did not get them put away within 3.7 seconds. Sheesh, woman. Chill out and gag me with a spoon.

You know where this is going, right? We can’t avoid it. We can’t prevent it. No matter how we fight it, WE WILL TURN INTO OUR MOTHERS. So here I am, screeching about shoes and clutter and worthless crap that is taking up space and attracting dust. I want it GONE. All of it. I went through every drawer and cabinet, every closet, every shelf, and if I hadn’t used it in the last year, it got the axe.

It was exhilarating. No second guessing, no regrets. Just chunkage of the crappage. I loved it.

I kept thinking of this clip from Harry Potter. (Seriously, you gotta watch it.)

(Did you watch it? No? I’m going to sit here until you do. I swear I will. I invented stubborn. Go on, then. It’s like a minute and a half. Watch it. Please.)

All my stuff, all these superfluous possessions are just like Devil’s Snare. They wrap themselves around my limbs, choke me, immobilize me, keep me from continuing The Quest and finding the treasure. And I don’t even realize it. In fact, instead of freeing myself from it, I keep accumulating more. Like Ron (bless him), I keep struggling against it and allowing myself to become more and more entangled. That’s just pathetic.

Let’s name it for what it is: more to manage, more to maintain, more to keep track of, more to clean—which obviously, I don’t do well. I didn’t remember getting half this stuff. If I don’t even know I have it, how am I going to use it? What is its purpose?

Whether we realize it or not, our stuff holds power over us. And, oddly, the more we have, the more we think we need. The more we want. It’s never enough. And that kind of imprisonment keeps us from seeing clearly, from having a broad perspective of who we are, who God is, why He entrusts us with so much, how He wants us to use it. It keeps us from recognizing our true treasure.

Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.

Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is bad, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!

No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. (Matthew 6:19-24)

These passages are sequential. Why? At first glance, one has nothing to do with the other two. But look closely at what Jen Hatmaker points out.

Treasure —> heart —> self-deception —> enslavement

What we treasure steers our hearts. Our hearts (the “eye” through which light flows) are either full of light or full of darkness, depending on what we treasure. What is in our hearts is either good (literally, “generous”), which leads to light, or they can be bad (opposite of generous; selfish, greedy). I’ll gander a guess, in the context of the next verse, and conclude that loving money and false treasure is “bad.” It clouds the window of our hearts so we cannot discern what is light and what is darkness. 

“If the light within me is actually darkness, oh how deep that darkness is.”

Hence, enslavement. If we treasure that which will either rot or be stolen, the accompanying fear and darkness keep us locked up. This is not only about accumulating stuff, but also about keeping stuff. What are we so afraid of? That we will need it? That we will miss it? That at some baby shower fifteen years from now, we won’t be able to find an alternative? Or that our pretty things reflect our value and make a good impression on those who come into our homes? Do we hold on to things so we will be loved? Smells like darkness to me.

But light? Light is generosity. Light is freedom. Light is life. Light loosens the grip of the Devil’s Snare.

I love what Jen Hatmaker says about this:

The more openhanded I became with my stuff, the less power they had over me. A brightness truly began flooding some dark recesses of my heart, ugly places where I wanted to protect my things, shelter my safety net, and harbor my justifications. It was like magic.

And while Jesus insists that we pick a team—God or money—grace allows us to yield ourselves to him one step at a time. It is

a thousand little moments, thousands of small decisions that bit by bit, choice by choice, slowly draw us under the leadership of the correct Master. When you purge your closets and give to a struggling family…that counts. When you skip those new shoes and sponsor a child with that money…that counts. When you help fund your friend’s adoption in some small way…that counts. When you spend more energy on people than decorating…that counts. When you give, share, contribute, provide for someone else…that counts.

Our cleaned-out clothes (and those of my fellow Thursday night Experimenters) are going to a homeless ministry downtown and to a clothing closet that provides clothes for homeless high school students. (Yes. They exist. Even in suburbia.) Some of my kitchen things—baking dishes, utensils, storage containers—will go into the kitchen of a homeless high school senior who is getting her first apartment. The rest of my not-treasures will be sold at a garage sale this weekend to fund Meghan’s work at a Vietnamese orphanage this summer. If anything is left over, it will not come back into my house. Be gone, Devil’s Snare! Lumos! 

…Let us throw off everything that hinders and the crap that so easily entangles. (Hebrews 12:1. Sorta.) Do it. Open up one cabinet. Evaluate. Re-evaluate. Put something in a box and find someone who needs it. Repeat.

Feels good, huh?

Have enough for a garage sale? Use the proceeds to do something meaningful, not just buy more stuff. Check out GarageSale4Orphans. Sponsor a child. Donate the cash to any worthy organization who stands up for the most vulnerable and neglected. Turn your trash into true treasure, a treasure that will last, that rust and moth cannot destroy, that cannot be stolen. Ever.

How about you? What did you learn from Possessions Week? 

Get ready. The next fast involves media. This is gonna hurt…

A well-meaning friend has brought to my attention that my children do not reflect the glory of God. Their behavior, the way they speak to us and the way they treat each other, does not befit that of a family who professes to love Jesus. (The wisdom of such a bold confrontation is another topic for another day.) Another friend, whose children (like mine) see through a mirror darkly, noted that the I say this because I love you should be reserved for “You have something in your teeth,” and “girl, get a lip wax, pronto.” My kids and my parenting are off-limits. We’ll leave it at that.

But apparently my kids, unaware of the confrontation, formed a coup and decided to show me just how darkly they see through that blasted mirror.

Good grief. I won’t even go into details of their so-not-reflective behavior. But I began to wonder if my well-meaning friend was right. I mean, I knew she was right—I am acutely aware of the ugly in my kids more than anyone. But do they really have to prove it—and in such magnitude and frequency?

iPods were confiscated, chores doled out, privileges revoked. And yet. What in the world ever convinced me I was qualified for motherhood?

One offender was dropped off at dance class, but not before rolling her eyes and slamming the car door. Another offender wrote a two page essay on using words which are encouraging instead of profane—complete with assigned Scripture references, thankyouverymuch. The third offender stayed planted in his room, supposedly folding his laundry. (Should’ve checked on him.)

When the essay was finished and the clothes were (supposedly) put away, I suggested a trip to the library because a) we needed a change of scenery, and b) I really needed to check out some books on exotic locations for Michael and me to visit. Alone. I am frightfully ignorant about the Mediterranean.

Turns out, the local library doesn’t open until noon. Yes, my friends, it was only 11:00 am. We are a family of overachievers: we pack in as much drama and dysfunction as we can before we even eat lunch. There oughta be a medal.

Thankfully, our library sits next to a fantastic park, and it was a beautiful spring morning, so we walked over. Nathan immediately noticed a brightly colored bounce house set up next to the playground.

“NO. Sorry buddy. That’s for a birthday party. Did you hear me? You can’t go over there. I’m sorry. Do you understand? It’s not for you. It’s for the party. Got it?”

Just making sure. I certainly didn’t need any additional drama from misunderstood and unmet expectations.

No worries. My two boys spent forty-five minutes chasing each other, playing hide & seek and tag, while I sat on a sunny bench and looked at my phone.

Yes, I am THAT mom. The one ignoring her glee-filled children running and skipping and laughing so she can play Solitaire for a few blessed minutes without anyone talking to her. (I’m not the only one.)

I looked up from my game and saw a passel of three year olds running, jumping, swinging, squealing. Crying, whining, kicking, pouting. I miss those days. And I don’t. My own cherubs were precious little monsters. Satan with pigtails. Beelzebub in seersucker sunsuits.

They used to need me a lot. Once upon a time, they could do next-to-nothing for themselves. And, good Lord, it was exhausting. Park dates involved sippy cups and Cheerios, following them around, picking mulch out of their shoes as they howled.

Today, they run off and play, occasionally checking in. They pick mulch out of their own shoes. They find their friends, who run and play with them. And I sit and enjoy not being needed so much.

Meghan texted me to let me know dance class had finished and I needed to come pick her up. (They still need me a little bit.) I herded my rooster chicks and we left. No kicking and flailing. No I don’t waaaaanna goooooo! No running away. They both opened their car doors, climbed in by themselves, and buckled their own seatbelts. After picking up Meghan, we went home, where they made their own lunches and fed themselves.

No, I don’t miss the toddler years.

But then.

I remember his sweet toddler voice squealing “Look at me, Mommy!” as he attempted a somersault across the family room floor. And how she would crawl into my lap with a book, one I had memorized from reading over and over and over. Then we would finish, and she would jump up, bounce to the shelf, and grab another book. “Wead?”

And I remember the deep toddler belly laughs when I’d blow raspberries on his tummy, how he would laugh and laugh and laugh, and when I stopped, he would shout, “Again! Again!”

I look at my kids now: much taller, leaner, more aware. No chubby cheeks or pigtails, no grosgrain ribbons or sunsuits. She has traded her Mary Janes for pointe shoes. His favorite blanket—the one he dragged behind him everywhere, the one often transformed into a superhero cape—he shoved into a basket in his room, forgotten.

I remember the years between then and now, years of hurt feelings and trying to fit in, trying to figure out who they are. Months and months of confusing changes, the veil between innocence and revelation slowly lifted. Sweet mercy, we’re still in the thick of that. No, they don’t need me like they used to. I can sit in blissful silence, alone—but the exhaustion of navigating these waters throws me to the ground. I’m just beginning to realize that their angry outbursts, their rolling eyes, their arguing with each other and with us—all those things come from a place of deep fear. Help me, they cry. I’m terrified. Everything is changing, I am changing, my friends are changing, and I need to know you still love me. I need to know you’re not going to change. And, by the way, can you take me to Target?

And the emotional energy required of me to discern that fear and not to push back, not to lose my head, not to scream or run away…it almost makes me miss sippy cups and car seats and mulch in their shoes. It definitely makes me miss raspberries and blue blankies.

I have wondered lately if I’m going to survive these next years. If they are going to survive. There’s a strong likelihood that somebody is going down.

No matter what season you are in, toddlers or teenagers, we’re all peering through a mirror darkly, not able to see who we are not yet. We’re getting there, slowly. Inching along, we do the best we can. Some days it is enough. Some days it’s not. But that’s all we can do.