NorthPark Presbyterian Church

Small things, small changes are nothing to turn up your nose at. If you recall, the mighty oak once started from a tiny seed, the strong and small ant, so close to things, is capable of carrying up to ten times his weight by himself. Yet we shirk at small, we think it's got to be big or cause a monumental shift in order to make a difference. Or perhaps that's just me.

We mistakenly believe that big and bold is the answer, while the truth of the matter is the only hope we have for changing the world is to do the little things well and do the little things first.

And boy howdy, we need a climate change in our homes before we can tackle the climate change in our world.

After all, if we can't even treat each other with kindness, what's to say that we will do that outside of our homes, to strangers, to our earth? How on earth can we go about the task of respecting the earth if we can't even figure out how to respect each other in our own homes? How are we going to tackle the big issues beyond our own front doors?

After all, we can't go at it alone, can't make the big changes we need until we start small and quiet. And a hint: most times on our knees in humbleness is where we first get that whisper of what needs to change about this world.

And another hint – changing the world most often starts with changing ourselves. I know, it's so deceptively sneaky, isn't it?

But that's a truth that we call all agree on, even if some of us are shaking heads and muttering under our breath that we don't want to change. But whether you mutter about it or not, in order to change the tall and looming issues of this world (climate change is only one of the items on the long to-do list) we need to realize how small changes can truly make a large and positive impact on our lives.

We know something needs to change when we realize we are kinder to those outside the home than those within its walls, when we seemingly have more patience with those on the street than the family we created. It's a sure sign we're overdue for a climate change.

When we stop and wonder why we can't see eye to eye with the ones we choose to be with, but are accepting of differences in those outside of our home, it's a reminder that it's time for a climate change within.

In case, like me, you've forgotten – the freshest air is the air we can actually change ourselves, and most often in comes in the form of kindness, compassion, and mercy.

Mostly it's sweet mercy. For those dirty socks, that pile of dishes, the unmade bed and the thousand other things that tend to drive us up the wall about one another, how sweet the scent of grace can be when we open the doors of our souls to emulate it.

A breeze of change in our attitudes – like love and laughter and an ease of spirit when a little someone spills the milk for what seems like the 40th time this week – or choosing a spirit of joy even amongst the morning routine circus. And especially in the intermission of we're-running-behind-and-where-are-your-shoes? Joy in those moments counts the most, just so you know.

The small change of seeing the authentic joy between the toast crumbs and the dance of the missing keys is small, so tiny, but so important. And yes, I sing this hymn to myself too, because goodness, I'm not removed from that morning dance that most days is still chaos, not a badly wrapped gift of joy. But it is, a mushed-up package of joy that most days I discount as inconvenience.

These small changes are where it's at. As anyone who's overcome anything difficult (quitting smoking, giving up an addiction, trying to cut gummi bears out of your diet) will tell you, it isn't conquering the big issue of quitting that's the hardest, it's the small daily stuff that is not only a challenge, but also ultimately the way out. It's those small daily decisions that get you to the finish line where you look back and wonder how it is that you were able to run more than five miles without stopping.

It is truly about the little things. While it sounds corny (it probably is) and a far stretch to say that in order to change the world, our climate and dialogues within our own homes need to change, it's true. It cannot be truer, for the home is a small microcosm of our world. And if you can't get along at home and appreciate others at home, what on earth makes you think you can get along with others or change the whole world?

It all starts at home, including climate change. So let's begin anew, and change the climate within our homes, by speaking love and truth to each other first.

Then let's see what happens.

It will be nothing short of earth-changing, I bet.

In this moment, in that moment, in every moment whether we believe or not, God shows up.

From what we read in the Bible, God shows up in the darkness. See Daniel and the lions den for that (almost) literal translation. God shows up in high places, royal places even. See Queen Esther's story for that one. And of course, he most often shows up in the most inconvenience of places and lowly of places (a stable, anyone?) Wherever he shows up the point is this: He shows up. He does not let us down. He truly does not disappoint.

I've found this to be true, mostly because I've experienced it first-hand.

It all happened slowly, close to 4 years ago after the birth of my first child. My encounter with God was as fast as swimming in sand as my hormones shifted silently underneath me, like plates moving under seas, undetectable. Under the deep joy and love for my baby, I occasionally felt layers of hormones and anxieties that I couldn't detect or see, only noticed sometimes that things weren't quite right, and kept slipping away from me, like trying to remember an old acquaintance's name at a cocktail party.

And then it happened: the perfect mix of hormones, sleep deprivation on top of sleep deprivation, combined with the newness and uncertainty of being a new mom, coupled with my tendencies towards an anxiety, and boom: the perfect storm of everything not right meant that I needed to do something quick to save myself.

It was like riding a bike for six months. Everything is fine, and then all of the sudden waking up one day forgetting that you know how to ride a bike, and the jolting feelings of knowing the next time you were going to get on that bike, you were sure to fall off in an instant.

And so one mild day in July 2010, several days after celebrating our 6th wedding anniversary, and several weeks after my darling new baby girl turned 7 months old, I checked myself into a mental health facility.

Little did I know that trying to save myself would mean that God would in the end save me.

They say God meets you where you are, they say God is with you in all cases, all places, through all things. And for the most part, I believed that. That was before.

And now that I've been through a place that was dark and full of much anxiety and fear, I can now say with clarity and confidence that He does meet you. With open arms, too.

And I'm here to tell you that He does indeed meet you anywhere, in any state. My story just goes to show you that you don't have to be in a perfect place, birds singing and tweeting as you sit on a bench under the shade of a large oak tree.

Being saved, coming to know and love Jesus with an unshakeable faith does not always happen in the loveliest times in your life. Maybe it has in yours, and if it has happened that way for you, that's wonderful. But in my experience, God comes exactly when you need Him most desperately; when you need Him with the most necessity, and yet somehow always shows up in the moments that you least expect Him.

But He does show up, I promise. He shows up just in perfect timing.

He's more likely to meet you in desperate circumstances, in a place where you're willing to listen and learn and be still. And unfortunately in my case, the place where I was (finally) still and quiet enough to listen was this place. I hoped I'd never know what the inside of this place looked like.

And as unpretty, imperfect and altogether scary as my story sounds, my encounter with God is still my story, part of my life. And it's about time that I let go of the fear to tell it.

In that place, that uncomfortable place of near wits-end and bleakness, I felt God's love and comfort there.

In the nightmares of just blank darkness where I had succumbed to thinking that they would just be part of my life, I found His warmth and presence. I knew, just somehow knew beyond a doubt, that even in this state of mind, in what felt like foreign terrain to me, God was there. And though I have no proof beyond a life now lived in gratitude, I'm certain of it. Certain that God was there, with me. And there is nothing that was more comforting and freeing to me than that. And can I tell you? I've never felt such love or light in those moments that I felt His presence.

And here's what I realized in my encounter with God, my testimony: I cannot walk away unchanged.

The best way I can describe this change and how I feel about God now is of course through the words of another – the insightful words of Barbara Brown Taylor: "God acts. Then it is our turn. God responds to us. Then it is our turn again."

And so goes it with faith, with an encounter with Jesus, with God. If you've had one, you know. You know like the wise old sage who sits on top of a hill, that you cannot just wax philosophical about life changed. You actually have to live it, respond to it, and live changed. What they don't tell you is it's only about the hardest thing you have to do.

Before I encountered God as my God, as a relationship and a reality in my life, back when they were just words on necklaces without meaning, I actually believed that being saved, knowing God and developing a relationship with Him meant that life would be perfect. There would be songs and hymns as background music as I skipped through life, challenges, traffic. Everyone would be kind. It would always be sunny, and my family would always and forever be in deep gratitude for me and my contributions to our life.

Not to burst your bubble here, especially if you're considering coming to know God and figuring out this whole Christianity thing (do it! Still do it, it's a great thing I promise), but let me be transparent here: it's no walk in the park.

Some days I actually throw my hands up in the air and wonder if God is indeed testing me, as it feels like constant and consistent SATs over and over again. And this is coming from someone who is a believer! To be quite honest, although I am saved and have seen firsthand the love and acceptance of Jesus, I still have to wait in line, my family still whines and complains like a normal family, and some days they are annoyed by me instead of being overwhelmingly glad and full of vivacity like I so hoped for, like the life I constantly see portrayed in a soft drink or snack food commercials. And from what I hear, I still will have to pay taxes for the rest of my life too.

The joys of this world, some days are just enough for us to bear.

But while life in general has not changed, some things have. Some major big things have entirely changed. I, for instance, still wear a cross occasionally but now I believe it. Now I understand exactly what that means and it means radical love. Love of a depth that I have seen and known. And it means that I need to live my life to the depth of that love, even as impossible as it seems.

It means loving deeply, it also means gratitude from the deepest part of who I am. Not just for the saving (though that's huge) but gratitude for the love I've seen, the life I have, the life that is yet to come. The one that's been promised that is a whole lot more fulfilling than years of tax returns and back pain.

And I will tell you – I'm changed, down to the core of who I am. My perspective on life, faith, health – everything – has changed right down to my mothering and how I interact with family, in that most of the time, I'm grateful. I remember not only what a gift life is (even frustrating, irritating annoying life like too much laundry and whining) but who gave the gift to me, and who paid for it in advance, all for me.

And can I tell you something? That changes everything.

Fully human. It's something we realize we are and yet at the same time don't want to be. We're human beings, which in my definition is: a soul all wrapped up together in a nice, yet sloppy, emotional and unorganized package that is some days seemingly all tears, shin splints, coughs and knee pain.

We tend to forget that 'being human' is okay. When we make mistakes or have errors in judgment, we chalk it up to being human, with a shrug of the shoulders. What else can we do? We're just human. Or, in other words: full of error, imperfections, love and kindness, with more than a touch of realness that can't quite be defined any other way.

It's a pro and a con, this human business; this living life the fullest we can with all these faults, freckles and frailties. It's an unfortunate side effect of the condition.

And boy did I have an education in being fully, totally aware and immersed in the human business last week.

My kids were sick.

And as any parent knows, sick kids are a challenging emotional and physical load. And a venture into very raw, real humanness that takes your breath away, both positively and negatively, depending upon just what type of sickness you're dealing with and how all that plays out in the physical symptoms. They were sick-sick, the kind of sick that takes captives and puts you on house arrest for a week.

In our house it was runny noses times ten, coughs, germs, yucky gunk, clangy coughs and all other sorts of things I’ll be polite about, not going into detail, just in case you're say, eating lunch.

It was the kind of sickness that had tangible telltale signs – my hands raw and split from constant washing, kids' tired red-tinged eyes, lots of tears and tantrums, and the most obvious sign of how sick they were: deep knee-shaped imprints on the carpet by our bed; signs of how much we all needed healing, a savior. Although I wasn't sick (prayers inserted here that I stay well) dealing with sick kids, well, you need just as many (if not more) prayers for your own health and sanity.

It was the kind of sick that made us all feel bad in varying degrees.

They were the kind of days that my son expressed so eloquently and clearly in his behavior on Tuesday: while being burped, he proceeded to spit up, take a expatriated shaky deep sigh and then just turned his head and fell asleep in the burp rag. Yep. It was about 4-and-a-half of those kinds of days. The kind we're all too familiar with here on earth, in this jumpsuit of emotions, nerves and soul we call being human. Sometimes it's not pretty.

We went to the pediatrician 4 times – 4 different times and 2 times in one day. My older child had never had so many lollipops or stickers, and I knew it was getting serious when she was excited to go to the pediatrician, previously known as The Evil Shot Giver. I also silently thought to myself it would possibly be easier to just add the pediatrician's office to direct deposit from my paycheck.

And each time we went to the doctor, the prognosis seemed to get worse.

I, being the controlling sort of human I am, wanted answers. I wanted results. I wanted proof that something could work, something would work, and some medication out there should work, right? I would love to say I was calm about this and trusting, but it was the sort of sickness experience that for me as a mom shook things up, most of all in who and where I place my faith and trust.

More than anything, I wanted proof that I was doing it right, helping my kids heal. I wanted proof and guarantees written in stone. Proof that medicine works; proof that it's 99% effective, that I don't have to worry. I wanted a tangible something that I could hold in my hands, that would reassure me that everyone would be okay, something solid, calming and cool, like a stone run smooth by a river.

But that's not how it works, I was quickly reminded. The proof I needed I found through many prayers, tears, and words of worry breathlessly said by my bed, in my car, woven in my sighs as I tucked them in with silent tears I dared not drop on their sweet sleeping fevered foreheads.

In this fully human world we live in, we are guaranteed nothing, not even wellness, not even health.

Promises get broken, some things can't fixed, people fail us, buildings that are supposedly earthquake-proof crumble under their own weight, medicines sometimes don't work and not all boo-boos can be kissed away.

This week I was reminded how we work so hard to build and construct our lives in a way that we never have to feel out of control; we construct such great walls, buildings, and boundaries that we don't need a savior. We actually don't need anything or anyone at all, we believe some days. And this week I was quickly reminded of how much we don't have control over.

We even tend forget that our savior came in our own familiar bittersweet package of this human condition.

Even though we know the truth about ourselves, we remain bullheadedly convinced that we don't need anyone to help us or remind us of who exactly we are. And we clearly don't need a savior we tell ourselves with such attitude, like a toddler fighting a much-needed nap.

And yet. And yet. We live as though we're invincible, convincing ourselves through our choices and life insurance that we don't need God, that we aren't the ones who need saving.

The riskiest thing we could do for our lives, health, social standing, and finances we tell ourselves, is believe. Is put all of our trust in one who, for all we know, is really just playing some cosmic karma game that we think will come back to bite us somehow.

The riskiest thing I could do was trust God in the end, in it all, and not just the pediatrician.

Sometimes we make the decision not to trust, like an animal with a broken leg. We would rather seethe and growl our way through life, not putting our full trust or weight on that leg or God. We would rather live in the pain and hope it gets better. We become bitter animals, the ones that cannot see beyond our own broken legs of hidden dreams, feuds and un-forgiveness that we cannot fathom the health and healing soon to come.

But deeper down somewhere, hidden under the longings, the hurt and the carton of ice cream, we know we can trust Him.

We know that He came here for a reason. And came to us, just like us: full of follies and heart-breaking love.

And friends though we fight it, we know that we can fully trust Him.

We've been talking about cognitive distortions this month, and so with that, I thought I'd share one of my big ones with you, because sharing is caring, right?

I'm all about being honest here. If you've read any of my previous posts, you probably know I've got some issues and distortions myself. I mostly try to deal with them with humor and a little dignity, mostly. Though some days "dignity" would be a stretch to describe how I react to things but that's okay, it only reinforces the fact that I'm still a human and not an alien.

But back to point: since we're being real, I've got to tell you that yes, I have my own very own made-up cognitive distortion: I suffer with what I've named Perspective Distortion.

I know. Like there are not enough issues I already have to deal with myself, I decide to create new ones, because I'm just fun like that.

Maybe you're a fellow sufferer – if you're anything like me or suffer from this insufferable, extremely annoying disease, the first indication of an infection is the audible oohs and ahhs over everyone's vacation pictures and their other life adventures on Facebook. Because well, that was the life you intended on living before you got sidetracked with real life, the ever-growing stack of dishes, the kids' performances, and those constant piles of laundry that are really your kryponite if you're being completely honest with yourself.

You'll also notice yourself longing, lusting even, for the kind of life those pinners on Pinterest have – the ones who make back to school crafts and totally organic homemade lunches for their kids; the ones who pin renovation projects gone the right instead of the way, way wrong way you're all too familiar with. You'll wonder how on earth anyone has found the time to coordinate all their kids' outfits for a picture, much less get them to behave, look at the camera AND smile. That is a feat not lost on you; makes you wonder where all those moms hide their super hero capes.

And then you'll wonder why your life looks so dull, so worn and frayed around the edges. Like a wood floor that is in desperate need of a really good polish. You'll wonder why your life just doesn't shine like theirs seem to. You may even, if you've got a severe case like me, wonder how on earth you can compete, knowing logically of course you can't, but emotionally not able to quite dismiss the feeling of such insecurity and I don't Measure Up-ness (yep, it's a word now) on a daily basis.

You may even give up your Facebook and Pinterest accounts. And while this is a noble feat, it isn't one that's entirely sustainable, in the sense that an alcoholic still has to live in a world with cocktails, you'll still have to live in a world of pictures of pristinely dressed children and crafts so beautiful they make you cry.

But hey, just a reminder: this isn't true, this isn't real life. It's the stage view of someone else's life, and we're living ours behind the scenes, behind the thin, frayed velvet curtain where we know the kids are smiling because of threats of no candy or video games EVER AGAIN, because that's what you had to do to get a decent picture with everyone smiling. Even though it's obvious that they are clearly forced smiles.

You and I live in a place where the best outfits and other things in life are held just barely together by gossamer strands of safety pins, paperclips and knitted tightly with prayer. There is a whole lot of life within those imperfect moments, the ones that are so gritty and real and raw we hesitate to capture them on film, much less share it on a social network.

The only thing – the only thing – that I’ve found as the cure for all this, what saves me from crafting while taking the Lord's name in vain and cleaning all night like a mad, mad woman, is God. The reminder that not only does He love us, but He made us, and He made us all in a very specific way.

So for example, while I may be a decent writer, I'm certainly not going to win the award for most kept-up house or crafting skills. My crafting skills involve a long, continuous line of expletives and grumpiness when things aren't adhering together just so, and I'm real sure that at the end of the day that's certainly not what honors God.

But that's okay. I'm not meant to paint clothespins or wield a glue gun, that's abundantly clear. Maybe you are, and if that's your thing, and that's wonderful. Truly.

Where we get lost in the perspective dysfunction is that we think our lives have to line up in some way, like we are all runners on the same track, and it's a matter of who finishes in what place. Like we are all the same, or even on the same track. News flash here: we aren't. We know this, but sometimes we need a reminder that God has each of us on our very own path, and it's going to come with a different, more scenic view of life than someone else's.

But as the janitor in your own life, the backstage custodian – sure, you’ll see the messes and the mayhem, but you'll also see the beautiful glory in the details. The way the floor indeed radiates on its own, shortly before a cleaning. You'll notice the way that the sun hits the windows and bathes everything in golden light and how that changes your perception of the worth of windows. And you will smile a private smile, as everyone else has missed this and gone home. It's your own private joy, this gapingly imperfect life.

And one day when you and I are a little more mature, advanced and trusting in this life and in God, you and I will smile in the quiet moments, grateful for this life where the seams don't completely line up. We'll be at peace with that, knowing deeply that our lives in actuality, are really quite wonderful. And you and I will bow down in silent, grateful prayers, thankful for finally realizing the proper perspective on life after all. With or without immaculately dressed children.