Brave, Anyway

Tag: bravegirlwannabe

  • Freedom

    Freedom

    Do you make New Year’s resolutions?

    I never know the right age to divulge more information to the girls. Should I just say yes because they’re going to do it in school or should I really say what I think and practice? And most importantly, will my truth result in an email from a teacher who thinks I’m the craziest parent ever when one of my girls repeats something I’ve said?

    I do not understand New Year’s resolutions. Once you’re a grownup, when you realize you need to do something differently you need to do something differently. Starting right then. Combine that with the fact that we abandon 80% of resolutions within 30 days, and I think we can deduce that the vast majority of the time the vast majority of us just don’t want to do the hard work to do or be better.

    I found myself admitting to Audrey that I do not make New Year’s resolutions. However, I do end each year and begin each year by reflecting on three things:

    (1) What are the ways that the past year’s word were fulfilled in my life?

    (2) What is my word for the coming year?

    (3) Is my list still good or do I need to make changes or additions?

    I have a word each year. A point of focus that I talk to God about, journal about, research, look for signs of, speak out loud, and expect to make progress in. In the past few years, my words have been things like fruit and promise and I can easily name how God showed up in my life in those years in those ways. So my words are also a way to practice and stir up my faith. Because I don’t always feel so faith-filled, and maybe more often than not am a bit of a doubting Thomas.

    My word for the coming year is freedom. Among dozens of other things on the topic of freedom, the Bible says we are called to freedom and that God responds to us and sets us free. There’s also the obvious the truth shall set us free. But the one nugget I like the most (so far) is that we are not to let ourselves be burdened again or to let go of our freedom. That implies that we already have freedom – and yet I don’t feel very free in several areas of my life. Perhaps this year will bring freedom from some negative thought patterns or the expectations of others, or maybe it will bring greater freedom in my mind and heart to dream bigger or simply to be silly more. It’s only day 2 and the possibilities are endless.

    And then there’s my list. The list of things that I want to be true for Ella, Audrey and I. I started it long ago in my phone and it helps center my thoughts and prayers for us – and as we all get older and the world gets bigger, new things get added to the list. The old faithfuls are that we are healthy physically and spiritually and mentally, and that we are full of hope, givers of grace, brave. As we got further into the teen and tween years I made additions like we embrace helpers and help, we enjoy school and work, we are safe and trustworthy friends, and we make good choices. And now this year, as Ella in particular has big decisions coming up, that we seek God’s plan for us, that we are not enticed by distractions, that we are honest with ourselves.

    I do have two constant resolutions: to put my girls first in all things and to be the best Mom I can be. On days when the house is tense because we’re all arguing about curfews or the length of shirts or how it’s OK to need help, I don’t feel like I’m doing a very good job. One of the things I need to be free of is the in-the-moment worry that their anger with me means they’ll act out or hate me. It’s on those days that the list reminds me of what’s really important and all the ways that things are going right.

    Our friend Abby took this photo of us a month or so ago. It’s one of my reminders that we can go from happy to mad to playful to dessert at The Cheesecake Factory all within about a 2 hour time period.
  • Sometimes What We Think Is All Wrong

    Sometimes What We Think Is All Wrong

    When I was a teenager, I told a small group of girls a secret that ended up getting out. At the time it was earth-shattering because the secret was who I had a crush on. I was absolutely convinced that I knew who “told” and I was so angry at her. I came home ranting about it and my Dad said something that has always stuck with me – you don’t know it was her, and it’s probably the person you least expect.

    Sometimes what we think is all wrong.

    I’ve been thinking about this line all summer. At home. At work. As a mom. As a reader. As a voter. As a processor of data and information. As a girl. As a friend. As a consumer. As a Christian.

    The earth is flat. Nope, turns out the earth is round.

    At midnight on December 31, 1999, all computers will stop working! Wrong again, and much of the world drank champagne or slept through the big nothing that happened.

    How about the beliefs (irrational fears) of southern parents in the 1980s? Kids wearing all black was a sign of something bad and hanging with the wrong crowd, maybe playing Dungeons and Dragons. Madonna, MTV and Garbage Pail Kids would all lead to sex or drugs or evil or all of the above. Our marriage to the idea that things that look and feel different are evil means we don’t easily recognize evil when it shows up wealthy and wearing a suit – presidents, justices, financiers. Or perhaps I just watched too much of the Smurfs and they made me a crazy communist.

    Why are we so tied to beliefs and someone else’s talking points that we’ve never really thought about or researched ourselves, while at the same time dependent on others to make progress by constantly questioning and learning? When we or someone we love gets a diagnosis, at least in part we look to medicine – filled with curious and constantly researching people who’ve asked themselves some version of what if what I think is all wrong? over and over and over again.

    Why don’t we apply our belief that constant learning is good in one area to all areas of our lives? Is it that we’re afraid to admit we were wrong? Is it that we’re afraid to upset God?

    When Ella was 5-ish, she came home from Sunday School questioning the teaching. Mommy, people don’t get swallowed by whales and live. I was horrified, and I’m also pretty sure I emphatically said we should not say those kinds of things while at Sunday School. When I anxiously talked to Pastor Chuck about how to talk to her about it and what to do, he laughed and wasn’t worried at all. Another way to look at it, he said, is that Ella is always going to know exactly what she believes and why, because she is really going to think about it – and that meant she would be able to explain it to others with something better than the likes of that’s what so-and-so taught me or that’s how I was raised.

    I’ve always struggled with a feeling that it’s wrong to have doubts. That it’s wrong to question. Especially as it relates to God and faith. But how can we really know what we think unless we consider all angles? How can we really know what we think unless we read the Bible for ourselves and ask ourselves what if what I think is all wrong?

    The more I think about it, the more I think there is nothing to fear on that path except that we may have to admit that we were wrong at some point.

    What if I am operating out of fear, and giving the girls space to make some of their own decisions is the best way for them to learn?

    What would I do differently if this process had 10 people instead of 5, or if the 5 had a better computer or program?

    What if the dress that I think is a little too short for Ella makes her feel great about herself and is the boost she needs during a tough week?

    What in the Bible definitively tells me God cares about health care? About women preaching? About abortion? And have I read it myself along with the content surrounding it so I have context?

    Maybe instead of being wary of people who have changed what they think or who aren’t sure what they think, we should be wary of the people who are afraid to question or admit they have questions. More than halfway though this life, perhaps it’s more of a red flag if someone hasn’t had an experience that changed them and how they think. We’re not supposed to never be wrong; we’re supposed to do better when we know better.

  • June in Pictures

    June in Pictures

    June: in like a lion and out like a lamb, just like the weather in March.

    Ella is at Appalachia Service Project, serving in Dickenson County. Teams like the one she’s with travel to Central Appalachia from around the U.S. to repair homes in some of the most beautiful country in our land.

    She will never be the same – because of the opportunity to serve, because of the worship, because of the people and their stories, and because she’s never gone this long with limited cell service. I am so ridiculously proud of her.

    Ella and teammates working on flooring.

    Today, Audrey has been cancer-free for an entire decade. A decade. It was and is just an unbelievable glorious gigantic miraculous miracle.

    My favorite Facebook Memories moment.

    About a week ago, one of Ella’s pals shared a moment she captured on Ring Dance night that she forgot to send, and it’s just *the* most adorable thing. It was a really windy evening and this picture captures that, along with the looks of happiness that young people have on their first big night as kind-of adults.

    I love these smiles.

    At the trampoline park, Audrey encouraged a room full of kids to line up boys against girls for dodgeball – and then talked serious 5th/6th grade trash. I loved every minute of it. Girls won.

    That look!

    I had my mammogram this month, in the month I hate to have doctor appointments. There’s no picture of this. The follow-up letter informed me my breasts were dense but fine. I’m not sure how I feel about them being called dense, but I’m considering it a win that I didn’t get something in writing that called them saggy.

    June sky on one of those nights I was anxiously waiting for test results.

    My parents had their 50th wedding anniversary and we all celebrated under the big tree in my sister’s yard. I love that tree, and it’s lesson that deeply planted roots result in abundant life and growth.

    Two seconds later he gave her rabbit ears and she rolled her eyes.

    Pancakes played Fortnite from the pink gaming chair that is Audrey’s throne. She loves when the girls are home to play all day, but she gets far fewer treats now that Audrey is here all day monitoring my every move. Cute cuddly things need treats!

    Princess Pancakes Sassypants

    Even the cats got along this month. While Henry Fonda always loves Katherine Hepburn, Kate rarely loves Henry and generally delights in bullying him.

    A rare moment when Kate tolerates Henry’s affections.

    June was good. The angsty minefield month is finished, and it was really, really good. I am ridiculously blessed, and thankful to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that I ask or think.

  • Be Strong Right Now

    Be Strong Right Now

    I struggle to be at rest when I don’t have things figured out or when I am overwhelmed. I don’t have to know the answer, but I need to at least identify the next step. What is the next right thing to do?

    All week, my thoughts have been disorganized and full of feelings. Sadness. Despair. Frustration. Rage. And just as I was trying to focus on God and church and a sermon and peace this morning, I opened an email about our schools partnering with the city to remember the lives lost here 3 years ago – asking that “we reflect together on the essence of #VBStrong” – and it really triggered me.

    The hashtag #VBStrong seriously pisses me off. We should not have to be strong. We are capable of taking steps to prevent the situations that result in these stupid hashtags.

    I went back to my journal entry from three years ago and realized that absolutely nothing in this city or this country has changed.

    Why can’t we start being strong in the areas that could help prevent these things from occurring? Why can’t we be strong when we vote, supporting candidates who support mental health care and background checks and reforms? Why can’t we be strong about a commitment to finding a compromise on gun control? Why aren’t we willing to put our strength into finding a compromise that shows that our commitment to life and quality of life is more important than our commitment to allow anyone to own any kind of weapon? Why are we just perpetually stuck in an argument about what we can and can’t have and what medical conditions we will and won’t help with, and then relying on each other to be strong when the guns we won’t give up end up in hands that kill our family members and our children and our neighbors?

    We should all be horrified by and convicted by The New York Times Sunday Review cover today.


    Our belief that gun violence won’t impact us personally may have been the original reason we were quiet, but at this point we must all accept and admit that our inaction and our selfishness and our obstinance got us here.

    I am done with all the reasons for not talking about it right now, with all the reasons this is really mostly a mental health issue, and with whining and indignant quoting of the second amendment. Those are the actions of cowards – people afraid of losing money, people afraid of losing votes, people afraid of losing power or control, people afraid that they have been complicit. News flash: you, we, are complicit. Our inaction makes us complicit.

    I don’t live in Texas and I have no idea if I agree with all the man’s politics, but I cried this week when I watched Beto stand up and call a thing a thing and call liars liars. There is no longer any right or appropriate time for these sorts of things. People – children – are being gunned down every day in schools, grocery stores, churches, movie theaters. I am so proud of this man in the moment captured in this photo.

    Maybe he wants votes. Maybe he’s a Dad and heartbroken. Maybe both. Likely both. But this took some guts. He has a hell of a lot more courage than most of us – and we stopped him a hell of a lot faster than we stopped an armed 18-year-old in a classroom up the street.

    I am a believer in the second amendment, the purpose of which was to ensure our ability to defend our country and our homes in the event of a tyrannical overtaking of our land or government. But we cannot be so afraid of compromise on finding regulations that we allow our own countrymen with AR-15s to tyrannically overtake our schools and our churches and our grocery stores and our peace.

    Today Audrey and I visited Horton’s Cemetery to talk about what Memorial Day is really about, to honor the memories of such brave men and women, and to pray for all those who mourn. Some fought in World War II, some Korea, some Vietnam, some Iraq. Some were drafted and some volunteered. Some died young and some died old. I read the words of Abraham Lincoln etched in a wall of stone there: “Honor to the Solder, and Sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his country’s cause.”

    Albert G. Horton, Jr. Memorial Veterans Cemetery
    Albert G. Horton, Jr. Memorial Veterans Cemetery

    What did they actually fight for? It wasn’t for our right to own an AR-15. It was so we wouldn’t need to live in fear of evil people who would wield weapons such as that against us.

    We need to be strong right now and actually take steps in the direction of making America safer. We can march. We can write. We can donate. We can vote differently. We can speak differently. We can open our hearts and minds to finding compromise. We can try something. We can try anything.

    In the words of David Hogg, a student survivor from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School: “I can respect you have a different opinion than me on guns but I can’t accept that we can’t do anything to save our kids.”

  • Girl at Work

    Girl at Work

    Women’s History Month along with the launch of affinity groups at my company has me thinking about what it means to be a woman at work. The word woman is uncomfortable for me, primarily because I think it designates a grown-up and I still think of myself as a girl. In a meeting full of men and women, I look around the room and my brain processes my work family as a room of boys and girls – we are all still witty and fun, after all. But I guess if I had to choose how to characterize my affinity I’d say I’m more comfortable with the word female, because it doesn’t come with any implications about maturity.

    I’m sure there are many things about working that are common to all of us regardless of our gender. So what, specifically, are the things that are unique to women? I’ve had a very privileged work life, and I’m keenly aware that I have not struggled in the ways so many have – I’ve never worked multiple jobs to survive, had a boss that was abusive, or lacked the safety net and help of family close by. But what I have experienced, what I have felt, are things like these…

    I cannot possibly be everything to everyone all the time, and yet I must be. Perfectionism and the desire to succeed are deeply ingrained in me and I know that’s true of many people regardless of gender – but largely I see women connect work promotion to perfection, as opposed to consistent performance. That brings me to I must show I consistently make solid decisions based on data alone, because if I make decisions based on any sort of emotion that’s a “girl” thing to do. Which is crazy because the truth is all of our best decisions are always some combination of data, collaboration, experience and gut instinct (feelings).

    The thing I am most afraid to say at work is I don’t know. I don’t know does not sound like an answer a leader gives, and I don’t think it’s an answer that women can give if they want to stay in a leadership role. I logically know it’s sometimes true for everyone, but it does not feel like this is OK for me.

    Although this is the face I think I make when I don’t know the answer, I’m pretty sure I just have resting Beth face and I’m not sure which is better.

    I judge myself the most harshly in the area of motherhood. My children are the most important people in my life and while it feels “right” and normal that my work family would know them so they can really know me, I sometimes fear others will see that I am winging this motherhood thing and have no idea what I am doing, and maybe they’ll think that applies to my work, too.

    And that brings me to if people know I have children and see the whole me and know how important my children are to me, will they think I am not “all in” at work? Or if I take time to get the girls to the doctor and orthodontist or just to see them at a fun field day, will people think my work is not a priority? One thing I have noticed, and sometimes envied, about my male colleagues is that they largely don’t give reasons when they take off work. My female colleagues almost always do, as if we are making a bit of an apology – as if reasons have a ranking and we must have an “acceptable” reason to take the time we’ve earned.

    If I felt like someone actively wanted me to fail, it was always another female. There are women who want all other women to succeed, even if they don’t particularly like a person, and there’s a kind of collaboration that happens with those women – I think because of an understanding that we can all grow and achieve more if more of us succeed. And then there are women who are so competitive or who so seek the attention of men that it feels like the progress made by the former group is diminished by the latter group, who behave in such stereotypical ways.

    In order to get my point across I guess I am going to have to interrupt and repeat myself. However, if I do that will people see me as aggressive and/or bitchy? Maybe they will. Maybe I *am* sometimes aggressive and bitchy. (Actually no maybe there, I am.)

    “I don’t know if that made sense,” said the smart woman who just made perfect sense.

    I came across this tweet recently and it really convicted me. I am supposed to be a leader and an example, and I realized that I regularly use this line when I am uncertain if my idea will be well- received: “I don’t know if that made sense.” I guess it would be ok if I said that because I was feeling like maybe my idea was not logical. But I tend to say it when I am certain about what I am saying, but I think it may not go over well. Not good.

    Are these sorts of feelings and thoughts even all about or unique to being female? I’m not sure. Perhaps men feel variations of them as well. Maybe the better question is why don’t we talk about this stuff more so our work environments can be places where we all feel safe to be ourselves, to be at our best?

    There are so many behaviors we all have and assumptions we all make because of gender, I guess the main a-ha moment for me in this women‘s history month is that it’s not just men that have the assumptions and behaviors. People, not just women, must bring their whole self to work and be their whole self at work and embrace their whole self at work – even and especially when they have feelings like I don’t know. That means more men and women have to work hard to foster environments where everyone can do that. Where everyone can just be honest – that they are some sweet and some sour, some quiet and some loud, some smart and some clueless, some confidence and some insecurity, some strengths and some weaknesses. Perhaps the key to more successful businesses, family lives, relationships and equality in all of those arenas is environments where people feel free and confident to be themselves, so their best ideas can be spoken and acted on.