Category Archives: Love

Jesus Lover

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When people talk about me, what do they say? I have come to the conclusion that people are talking about me far less than I think they are. Seems I am the only one who thinks me so important. But when people do talk about me, what do they say? Oh, that is Abby she is…..?

There are so many things I want to be. A good teacher, (the teacher to some, the one that made the difference), a great mom and wife, a published author one day. All of those things plus the more general terms, kind, honest, funny. I hope people say that too. I hope those labels stick to me like the stickers on my food packaging, like the stamp on the milk container.

There are so many labels out there labels within labels even. Not just mom, working-mom, stay-at-home-mom, crunchy-granola-mom, attachment-mom, ferberizer (I know, really, it is a thing. I didn’t make it up.)

And as a christian, Oh Lord, how we love our labels. I am a fan of telling people about Jesus. I pray for people to meet my savior. If that is evangelism, am I an Evangelical? I believe that the bible is fundamentally true, am I a Fundamentalist? I speak in tongues and see visions, I have occasionally dreamed dreams. Does that make me a Charismatic? I was raised a Disciple but now go to a Baptist church, was baptised in a Disciples church but now take my discipline in a Baptist one. What does that make me? How do I identify myself? What does it mean?

What if I didn’t care? What if I peeled off all the other labels that I and others have attached to myself, wiped clean all the sticky residue, and printed off a new label. Black on white in bold, 40 point font. What if I stuck it straight onto my chest: Jesus Lover.

What if I lived my life in such a way that the only way to talk about me was to talk about Him? “That’s my friend Abby. She loves Jesus.” If I stopped spending so much time worried about if I am doing it all right, and simply concentrated on loving Jesus, what would that mean for me?

Oh to be a Jesus Lover. To think all day everyday on loving Jesus well. To do the dishes and the grading, the laundry and the driving hand in hand with my savior. I wouldn’t spend so many minutes worried about what a good mom, wife, teacher, friend, does. If I failed at one of those it would be okay.

Those are the things that I do. They are not who I am. I am a Jesus Lover.  I love Jesus. Put it on my t-shirt tomorrow and my gravestone someday Abby Norman: Jesus Lover.

If this was where my story began and where it ended, if it wrote everything in between. What a beautiful story it would be.

I’m back! and talking about love?

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Sorry for the unannounced hiatus. Apparently between the summer school, the just over one year old, and the growing a baby, I needed a break. So, I took one. Next time I hope to at least actively decide instead of spending a month promising myself I will write tomorrow.

 
Something this week really caught my eye. Don Miller, a Christian writer and blogger, wrote a 2 part series about how to write your love story. I wasn’t a fan. Rachel Held Evans, a Christian writer and blogger disagreed with him, in a post I loved. Since then Don Miller has taken down his posts and issued an apology. I have always had a lot of respect for him as a writer, but never more than I do know. He really and truly exudes grace and truth….even when he gets it wrong. Rachel Held Evans is quickly becoming “my girl”. Everything she writes I love and I can’t wait till her new book is out!
 
Anyway, this whole dust up was about the incredibly controversial subject of….love stories. Right, not something I think of as controversial either. But it did get me thinking about love stories, how God writes them, why does he write them, who is the star etc. I was a teenager when the book “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” came out. And suddenly, every youth group was doing a series on courting vs. dating, love, purity. And every Christian author had something to say about Godly love stories and also how to not have sex outside of marriage. In fact, one summer we talked so much about what the Bible has to say about sex I remember telling my youth group leader if we continued to talk about NOT having sex and NOT thinking about sex I would start having it because all this talk about not having it made me think about it a whole lot more than I normally did. I don’t know how well that went over, but really how much can possibly be said about how to keep your pants on?

But love, and love stories….I think there may be more to say on that. I have read more than one book on Christian dating that basically says the man needs to make all the moves, and the woman needs to wait…and wait… and don’t say anything and wait. It is the man’s adventure and he invites the woman to join him.

Surprise, surprise I never really followed those rules. I don’t know….I guess it was just the whole waiting thing. I wasn’t great at. Also, the not saying anything. I am terrible at that. Though I didn’t ascribe to this whole thing, I had an opportunity to watch this play out a lot in college. I was involved in a major campus ministry that supported this model. Plus, I had an absolutely adorable roommate who fit more easily into this romantic mold than I did. And quite a few boys wanted to date her. So….every once in a while (but DEFINITELY more than once a semester, usually more than twice) a boy would show up to our room and I would make myself scarce because the boy would want to DEFINE THE RELATIONSHIP, or DTR. One of two things would happen. Either my roommate would be totally taken off guard and have to let this poor boy down gently, or she would ask for the opportunity to get to know the boy better and his feeling would be all hurt because he had really wanted to date my roommate and she just didn’t know him well enough to say “Yes! I want to be your girlfriend.” The other thing it did was encourage girls to pine away for whichever random boy caught her eye. She would build this boy up in her head as her perfect guy and maybe just maybe he would show up at the door one day and “define the relationship.” On the occasion that the boy DID show up….the relationship was a disappointment because the girl was into the boy in her head and not the boy that actually existed.

It just all seemed so…confusing…cloak and dagger in a way. It also leaves the poor girl with no agency while the poor boy has to figure out if this could potentially be marriage material when he didn’t even know if he liked eating pizza with her. It seemed to confusing to me. Not that this method hasn’t worked for thousands of couples. I am just not a big fan.

Instead I have started to think that there is one great love story. The love story between God and man, creator and creation, Redeemer and me. A person who needed (and needs) desperately to be redeemed. And yes, God made the first move, but I responded. And love stories between two people are as unique as the love stories people have about how they met Jesus. Sometimes God shows up and says “I love you, love me” and you do. Sometimes God has been in your life forever, always being there for you until one day you wake up and realize He is who you have been looking for all along. Most times God shows up right when you are ready to be with Him.

However it starts, and at whatever pace. True Christian romances are all uniquely the same: God grows two people in a way that suits both the person and the partner. If you let Him, Christ uses all those imperfections you once thought of as impossible to get around to serve another person, sometimes it makes you uniquely qualified to love each other. God is a romantic and a pursuer of the church. And our love stories point to that.

On Love and Leadership OR Happy (Belated) Birthday Hubby: You’re a good one!

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It was Christian’s birthday Thursday! Elizabeth took Juliet (starting Wednesday night! You’re the best girl. The best!) and we slept in. Then we went out to lunch and went to the grocery store. So exciting I know. But it was the perfect day. We then picked up the Peanut and went to go get ice cream. Finally we came home and Christian went to go play poker. It doesn’t sound like much, but Christian and I have come to discover that we are basic kind of people. Simple pleasures work for us. (And the sleeping in, oh the sleeping in!)

But that isn’t exactly what I have been meaning to blog about. I have been meaning to blog about how lucky I am to have Christian’s leadership in my life. Specifically, his spiritual leadership. I know that there are some women who desire to be in a relationship where they trust their man and he makes the decisions. And I get that in theory…I guess. Who am I kidding, I don’t get it, but to each their own I suppose.

But I think that marriage is a lot like raising kids that it looks different for everyone and I say if it works for you (and the Bible doesn’t say bad idea) do it. And for us these are some things I have been batting around. I am not saying this is the case for everyone; I am saying this is the case for me.

I am not the easiest person to lead, by anyone. And for Christian….well I think it may feel to him as though he has a cat on a leash. I certainly know that I am pulling sometimes just because I feel like it, not because I have a good reason. But for me I know that I can follow Christian because he loves me so well.

Sometimes I have crazy ideas. Sometimes they are good (the redecoration in the bedroom is shaping up very nicely, and if I get this craigslist dresser under $100), but occasionally I get ahead of myself. When we moved in I really wanted to get chickens. Fresh eggs! They can eat our garbage! Our backyard is huge! It will be sort of fun and eccentric and cost effective! Christian knew better. He was raised around farms. Chickens smell bad, and I can barely keep up with the less than half of the housework that is my responsibility. Now with two under two on the way…..boy am I glad I don’t have to go collect eggs. Bending over to get them sounds torturous right now all the while trying to keep the Peanut from plucking feathers out by the fistful and/or not eating the chicken poop….good Lord. (Although the blog fodder would have been priceless….). It was a bad idea.

And when Christian said as much, I was able to listen because he loves me. He consistently has my best interests at heart. Dog because we were new in town and he was gone almost every weekend, okay. Chickens, no. Redecorating, do what I want. He mostly lets me do what I want, so when he says “bad idea” I trust it is one. Plus, it goes both ways. If I am really not down with Christian’s plans, he holds off. He hears me. Even when we can’t come to an agreement, which is very rarely. I know that I have been heard and my best interests are taken into consideration.

My department head used to love her students into submission. It was unreal. I watched it happen and I still have no clue how she did it. I guess she raised her voice on occasion, but really and truly they believed that she had their best interests at heart and thus they did what she asked.

The best parenting book I have read talks a lot about that. That kids respond to you loving them really well. And setting up loving boundaries is a good thing. Leading kids as parents means setting up situations where it is safe for kids to be them…and sometimes to fail. There wasn’t a whole lot of rebelling going on in the house I grew up in. Mostly because we believed that the “No’s” weren’t arbitrary. We knew our parents wanted what was best for us, and if it wasn’t going to hurt us they generally went with “okay”.

When I was in Bible study in college one of my leaders called God’s boundaries the “electric fence of love”. God leads us by loving us. His boundaries are there for a reason, and He only has them because He care about our well being. And sometimes we decide something is a good thing that….well…isn’t. Like chickens in the backyard or running my mouth just because I am mad.

When you not only know, but see consistently over time that someone loves you and always has your best interest at heart……it makes following a lot easier.

Today is Red and White day

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Every Thursday is Red and White day, all summer at Camp Ray Bird henceforth: CRB (except for discipleship week ….we’ll get to that.) The day where the campers learn that Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead for the forgiveness of their sins. They learned about sin on dark day, Wednesday. Gold day is Tuesday, when they learn of the goodness of God, and Green day is Friday, when the campers learn how to grow in the Lord. (If you read your Bible and pray every day then you’ll grow, grow, grow.)

Christian and I worked at Camp Ray Bird the summer before we moved to Atlanta (Summer 2006). We had some friends on the speech team who encouraged us to get summer jobs there, so we thought “what the heck.” I spent the summer answering phones and messing up registration (seriously….talk about learning about God’s grace…) while Christian led activities that the counselors took their campers to. A job you don’t normally need a masters degree for (you don’t usually need to be old enough to vote….but Christian managed to fit right in.) What goes on is so much more than the sum of the stuff that everyone does there.

The basics are this. Around a thousand kids come through CRB every summer. Almost every single kid qualifies for a reduced fee. $30 for the week. The whole week, overnight, 3 meals and 2 snacks a day, and a t-shirt if they memorize all of their Bible verses. Not to mention swimming everyday, daily activities, crafts, the whole summer camp experience. From where I sit that is less than VBS at some churches, and all the kids eat there is a themed snack.

But the biggest piece is this. The kids are loved at CRB. The counselors, the kitchen staff, the lifeguards, the 16 year olds whose job it is to put the worm on the hook for the 7 year old girls, every single person is there to love campers, even if that means discreetly picking up wet sleeping bags and having them laundered before “horizontal hour.” Every worker believes it is their job to love the kids in whatever way they can.Even if it means cleaning toilets or roping off the field for games later that night.

And the kids, even the little ones, can’t leave without understanding who Jesus is and exactly how much God loves them. I’m not saying it fixes all their problems or anything, poverty is a beast for sure. But for a week, one week, kids who otherwise wouldn’t get the opportunity, get to do summer. Not sit in front of the TV all day because it is too hot or not safe enough in their neighborhood to go outside.There is no public pool in South Bend, so for most of the campers their week at camp is the only week they swim.

Christian and I feel so, so blessed to have been witness to what goes on there, to be able to participate in the ministry. This is the first year we won’t be able to visit, even for a weekend. The timing of it all just didn’t pan out. I’m praying for the ministry this summer. And praying that the staff can see beyond the grueling hours and incessant needs of the campers to the investment they are making in the name of the Lord. It gets hard sometimes.

And if you feel so called…even if it is just a couple bucks, feel free to click the pay pal button on the Camp Ray Bird website. I worked in the office, and can honestly tell you that NO ONE can stretch a dollar like the CRB staff. I’ve got details if you want them. Seriously, even 5 bucks will pay for bait for fishing for a week. And by all means put them on your prayer list!

My pain ain’t your pain

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In less than three months I am going to give birth again…..and I am PUMPED. I know that may sound totally bizarre to some. I know women who have only had one child that cite child birth as the main reason they didn’t have another. It is always something along the lines of making a deal with God that if the epidural worked they would NEVER get themselves in that position again.But for me it wasn’t like that.

Maybe it was because I had an AWESOME book that is now out of print (I looked into getting it for a friend, but $68, ouch). Maybe it is because I have a high pain tolerance after years of fibromyalgia. Maybe it is because I know LOTS of women who gave birth sans pain meds and are really positive about their birth experiences. But for me birthing babies is a little like what people describe in running marathons. Yes, it hurts, yes there are moments when I feel like I cannot do it. But then you keep going and at the end it is AWESOME and you feel so accomplished, and the natural high that your body gives you………I don’t have anything to compare it to, but I am told that a high like that is very expensive and can have some weird side effects. 
But not every woman comes into the hospital laughing about 6 or 7 centimeters. The nurses were certainly surprised. And not every woman had all the awesome opportunities and support I had. And pain is a really. really, personal thing. Like so personal that we can never experience each others. We can both stick our thumb in the exact same place and get hit by the exact same hammer at the exact same force, and yet….it could very well not be the same pain. Who knows. We’ll never know. Maybe your thumb is super sensitive. Maybe you literally have more pain receptors than I do (people don’t have the same amount, isn’t that crazy?)Maybe my nerves over-react to certain stimuli. It isn’t the same. It never will be.
When you have a muscle disorder for as long as I did, you start thinking about pain, reading about it. The studies about chronic pain are beyond depressing. You actually lose IQ points if you are in chronic pain long enough. You wonder how a body that looks healthy can be in that much pain. You literally forget the sensation of “pain free.” I started to wonder about the pain scale at the hospital. “On a scale of one to ten…” At my worst I calculated that I walked around everyday with what I would describe as a 6…..so what did that mean, was 6 my new zero? Did my scale now go from 6-16 while yours capped at 10? Could I feel more pain than you……like my body had somehow gotten good at it? Would I even notice a 2, or would that now seem like relief. Like a 2 for me would now be like you with an Oxycotin?
 It was all so strange to think about. We can talk about it, and describe and calculate and attempt to define. But we can’t ever experience someone else’s pain. And we shouldn’t pretend that we do. I know what it is like to be told it can’t possibly hurt that bad when you are doing everything you can not to sob uncontrollably and scream the exploitive that rhymes with duck. So do you need an epidural. I don’t know. I’m not you, I can’t actually feel your pain.
I think spiritual-emotional pain is a lot like physical pain. For whatever reason some things that seem the same from the outside, break ups, parental abandonment, heck even a harsh word don’t always hit the same spot in the same way. We certainly don’t feel them in the same way. I have two sisters, and Emily (the oldest) seems to be built less sensitive than I am. Things don’t hit her in the same way. But when I call her crying because….oh who knows why, but my feelings are hurt again…..she doesn’t tell me that it doesn’t hurt, that I shouldn’t be crying. She acknowledges my pain and helps me figure out how to move on.
I however, am often not so gracious. When people are talking about what a difficult time they are having I sometimes am rolling my eyes internally. I want to shout “GET OVER IT! YOU DON’T HAVE PROBLEMS!” But they do. They are hurting, their spiritual nerves are shot. Maybe I would rate their pain as a 2 but I am not the one who is experiencing it. Maybe it is an 8. I wouldn’t know. Often times people are hollowing because there was already a bruise there, you know? I will just have to trust them and hear them and be a little more empathetic. Because your pain, ain’t my pain.

Won’t you be my neighbor?

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Sometimes I think modern christians have the tendency to complicate some issues. We have, I love my neighbor month at 1027 church, which I love. We often explore the issue of who exactly our neighbor is. And I have a book on my kindle that I am slowly working my way through that argues that now that we are in a digital age and aware of problems we never would have been aware of back in the day, we have a larger group we need to be calling neighbor. Google expands our virtual neighborhood.

But you know who else is my neighbor….um…..my neighbors. The people who actually live in my neighborhood, in the houses next to mine. Yeah, them. A few weeks ago someone knocked on my door and wanted jumper cables. I could do that. Heck, he didn’t even need me to hook ’em up, just go to my car and get them. I almost didn’t look because I didn’t feel like it. But I did, which is good since I would have had to admit it right here if I hadn’t. Wow, that would’ve sucked.

Tomorrow I have the opportunity to love on my actual neighbors in my actual neighborhood. I am super excited. I have this opportunity because my neighbor Brooke (the one who spiffied my blog up) goes to the neighborhood meetings and helps with passing out the neighborhood letter is in the know. She heard there was a kids carnival being put on by a church in the neighborhood and they needed a face painter. She signed me up!

When I was a girl scout my mom decided that for the purposes of our troop, painting faces beat raking leaves when it came to the service hour requirements. So we spent a couple hours practicing on each other and then signed up for some local festivals. Painting faces is way more fun than raking leaves. Especially when you are sixteen, or pregnant (or both but hopefully not because the girls on that tv show have it rough). I got to face paint last year at the Virginia Highland Summerfest. Our church sits right in the middle of that street festival and there is no where to park that sunday so we are encouraged to volunteer. Christian and I have always volunteered at the kids center because we like kids. And they ALWAYS need people.

Last year the Peanut was just a couple weeks old. We weren’t really sure how that was all going to shake out so we didn’t volunteer. But when the day came we felt like we could manage, as long as we could take the baby. And the kids place was again desperate for volunteers. When we offered our services the woman in charge said something like “what I really need is face painters, please tell me one of you can face paint!” And I could! The best part of face painting is this, people let you lay hand on their kids. It is socially appropriate to touch a shoulder or hold a chin gently still. And while you do you can pray over that child. It was awesome.

So when Brooke heard they needed face painters she said “my friend can do that!” and I have been spending the last forty minutes looking through google image search and bookmarking my favorite designs so I will have some choices for the kids to pick from. I have found that if you just say “what do you want” sometimes the choosing takes more time than the painting (and there is always a line). And sometimes you get requests that are very difficult to fulfill (I want a snake eating a badger…a HONEY badger….and a bear is eating the snake…can you do that….PLEASE….just try….that doesn’t look right…..can I have something else?). Also, my design ideas tend to be sort of girl centric. I only have neices and daughters. I learned to face paint through the girl scouts, and then we would go paint brownie troops. I am awesome at hearts and rainbows, butterflies and schools of dolphins, fairies that rest on one cheek and spit magical swirls all over the little girls face out of her star shaped wand. A boy shows up I am all….a BLUE heart? how about a baseball….you don’t like sport? I can write X-MEN on your cheek…I can draw a green squiggly line and call it a snake. But I found some awesome batman/spider man masks I can paint and a snake or shark that opens its mouth when you open yours!

I am so excited. And I wouldn’t have had this opportunity if Brooke wasn’t purposeful about plugging into our neighborhood. If you don’t ask, how do you know what people need? If you don’t put yourself in a place like the community meeting, you won’t know they need face painters.

The best part about face painting is if you mess up, a new design is just a single wet wipe away.