I say, "Boo" to this day, not on this day. I hate Halloween. I truly, completely, utterly hate Halloween.
As a child, I don't think I ever got to dress up as something I wanted to be. That's probably because I always wanted to be The Little Mermaid or Jasmine, but had to be something my mother could sew up for me. I remember being Betsy Ross. You know, because every seven year old girl longs to be a woman she's never heard of. There was the time I was the Queen of Hearts. I think she chose that because I don't like people. Again, I would have rather been Ariel. One year I was a Native American girl. My mother went through a phase of bead weaving. Yup, I wore my well tailored, home-made costumes year after year. And the clowns!! My brother and I were matching clowns one year. How could I forget?! Close one. But as we got older we were allowed to pick our costumes. When we moved to Massachusetts, we actually had a yard and a home that we could decorate. My mother had rules on that as well. By the time I reached middle school, I knew my mother's expectations. No witches, no ghosts, and nothing scary. It was true of our costumes as well as the house. And it wasn't until this age that she began to tell me why. Halloween is time that lines are blurred. We take things like witches and turn them into cute little beings. Truth is, witches are real. And they are not cute! Witches are practicing magic. People seem to think that this is all made up. What seems to bug me about it is the amount of Christians that don't believe witches are real. Have you read the Bible? Moses and Pharoah. Moses has God's miracles and wonders. Pharoah has magicians! Over and over we see the warnings against magic, sorcery, and such. It's all a part of Satan worship. I will never forget the first day I encountered a witch. I was in sixth grade. My brother was in the marching band and so my mother decided to take me to the football game. We entered the gate and I saw two high school girls. One of them stared at me the entire way. She kept her eyes on me even as I turned. I could feel her staring. We sat in the stands and I looked over at her. Her eyes never left me. I said something to my mother quietly. Her response was, "They're witches." I was in shock! They looked like normal teenagers. My mother knew the other girl. It was a girl who had a crush on my brother in middle school. They had class together a lot. He knew that she had been practicing witchcraft with this other girl and had spoken to my mother about it. We talked about it in the car. I struggled with the fact that they stared at me. Out of all the coming and going, why stare at me. And my mother knew they answer - "They know you're a Christian." See, those girls had given themselves over to Satan and his demons. The girls in their own sense didn't know, but the ones that they gave themselves to did. And they didn't like us. There was an actual spiritual battle going on that afternoon. And in that moment I was confused and scared. But as an adult, I look back and think about what type of battling was going on that I couldn't see? How much was my mother praying right then and there. What angels fought in my stead. I knew at the age of twelve that this was not something to mess around with. In other words, I backed my mother on her decision to decorate for fall and not pretend to be something against the Bible. Even after that, I wasn't a fan of Halloween. Don't get me wrong, I loved getting candy. And even once I was able to choose my own outfits and go trick-or-treating with just my friends I thought it would be different. It wasn't. Turned out, I didn't like dressing up. I fought back and forth with it. I've tried to get into costume as an adult. "It's fun!" people shout. I don't find it fun. I find it cumbersome. I just want to wear clothes and eat candy. For me, a scary costume would be "sexy" anything and not putting on make-up. People would run and hide. (More for me!) I don't have the desire to dress up and be somebody else. I think I finally figured it out a few years ago. Ready for the epiphany? I spent so many years pretending to be someone I wasn't in everyday life, that I didn't feel like adding another mask. Then parenthood came along. Now I have the continual chance to teach my children about it. Witches are real. Ghosts are not. Skeletons are real, but they aren't for Halloween like you think. Bats are real. Zombies are not. Back and forth we go. Then I explain to them why I don't like Halloween. I don't care for how people make less of things that are actually terrible. Then we decide that we will trick-or-treat for the "fun" of dressing up and to get candy. Every year I hand out treats to the kids that come by even though I don't want to. I know that I'm condoning all of it. I fear getting egged, honestly. My heart becomes scrambled between what I want to do - sit inside and watch TV- and what I do - send my kids and husband around our neighborhood for the good candy and hand out the junk candy they bring back. This conflict within me is what makes me hate this holiday even more. If I just say, "Oh it's just kids having fun and getting candy," then I glaze over all of the other things that Halloween is. The point of All Hallows Eve was that the Celts held a Samhain festival and wore masks to scare away ghosts. Yet we have turned our eyes to this so that we can wear costumes and get candy. I'm so confused! I don't see the connection. What I see is Mars and Hershey sitting around a table saying, "Ya know, we need to sell some more candy. Summertime melts it all and we're losing profit. What holiday is close by? Festival of Samhain? Sure let's make people give candy to kids in masks. Great." Then some guy named Hallmark said, "hmm, I need to sell cards about love..." This whole holiday seems ridiculous. There are families that don't participate because they know the history and don't want to be a part of "ghosts". There are families that participate as we do, with knowledge and truth and a desire for Reese's. There are families that go to the extreme and try their best to scare the patrons looking for a sweet treat. It's because of all of this that I just can't get behind Halloween. The upside of Halloween, besides the Reese's, is that I have an opportunity every year to discuss things with my children that I normally wouldn't bring up. When we go for a walk and see the decorations, they might say something like, "Yeah but those things aren't real" and we can discuss. We do a history lesson on All Hallow's Eve year after year so that they understand where all of this madness came from. It opens up a line of communication that I wouldn't normally bring up. So I can find the good. And the kids do enjoy dressing up in costumes as much as I despise it. So, I guess they aren't acting like someone else all year long.
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Standards are, and always have been, a part of life. Sometimes we like them. Sometimes we don't. Sometimes we love them, and other times we loathe them.
Standards are often spoken to the hearts of teenage and older girls guys in the world of dating. "Don't lower your standards just to be with someone!" How many of us heard that one? To ease a sense of loneliness we find ourselves with a significant other that doesn't treat us with significance. We know what we want, but since we don't have it available, we date someone for body warmth. It's a little different when you're picking out an afternoon snack. "Gee, I really would like some chips. Oh, we don't have any. I guess popcorn will do." It's an okay time to lower our standards. Perhaps it would be different though if a diabetic chooses cake over strawberries, but that's a whole new set of standards. And that's just it. We have standards for every part of our lives. I was cleaning my floors yesterday and I thought of my mother. We had a dog. I loved her dearly. She shed. A lot. Always. Her hair was a nice yellow that showed up on black. Our hardwood floors were a blond as well. The carpeting upstairs was gray. The one room downstairs with carpeting was "the stain hider" of all carpeting, but not for dog hair. My mother cleaned the floors in a way that suggested we did not own a dog. If it weren't for the barking and intense desire to say hello and lick your face, our dog would have gone unnoticed by cleaning standards. The way my mother cleaned was instilled in her from her mother. Is there an actual standard of cleanliness within a home? I bet different people would give different answers. I'm sure Martha Stewart would have an answer. Does it matter? In the level of cleanliness, yes I would say there is a standard that matters. Filth and disease should not be available to your children or guests. For dating, absolutely. You don't want to be taken advantage of for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. What about education? We hear about standardized testing all the time. Depending on where you live, you might appreciate them. Depending on your career, you might despise them. The point of standardized tests is to appropriately figure out if the test taker is ready for the next lump of material. In Massachusetts I took the MCAS. It was new while I was in middle school. I took it as an eighth and tenth grader. I loved it. As a poor test taker, I enjoyed seeing that I could master material on a standardized test. I felt more prepared for the SAT. The MCAS were given in fourth, eighth and tenth grades. It helped to track students' progress. Whether or not they still do that testing, I don't know. I know the state department wanted to see how kids were doing. Down here in South Carolina, testing is far worse. From third grade on, students have beginning of year testing, bench marks throughout the year, and end of year testing. I can't fathom the amount of class time is spent with students sitting in front of a screen taking a test that decides if they know the material or not. And we wonder why anxiety levels are up in kids?! The point of the tests have been skewed. The amount of tests has increased. The ability for teachers to teach material for life versus a test has been dropped. The standard is now the bad guy. How horrible is that? Too many people have negative mindsets about standards because of how others manipulate the standards to meet their needs. Isn't this what has happened to God and the Bible? God said the standard for heaven was perfection. He said to follow Jesus. Admit your sin. Believe in your heart. Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord(Romans 10). You will be saved. But we have decided to blame our sins on our surroundings and pass the buck. We believe in our minds, but our hearts are too precious to give away. We confess that Jesus was a phenomenal teacher, worker of miracles, and all around good guy, but Lord? That's tough. God gave us black and white on many issues and we have turned them into a gray glob of goop. He set the standard for us. Yet we choose to make our own because we just plain don't like them. We don't like that his standard has convicted us. We don't like that his standard doesn't allow for the stupid stuff we want to do, say, watch, listen to, be a part of, etc. What's worse is that there are manipulators of the standards. God said you have to be perfect, since I can't be perfect, I might as well enjoy sin. God said I just need to apologize so I can go out and be stupid on Saturday night, ask forgiveness on Sunday, and enjoy his forgiveness. God said so.... Can you fill in the blank? Over the past few years I have had to ease up on the manipulation big time. God said to honor your mother and father and have a long life. You are not honoring me, therefore you're going to die early. Okay, I didn't phrase it like that, but that was the gist. With a TON of guilt added on to that. Parents, pastors, speakers, writers, and countless others have turned people from the will of God because they can manipulate his standards to make us despise that standard. I think one that I have gone back and forth with is "Love the sinner, hate the sin." I don't know if the intentions were right and the phrasing having holes or if it was meant to cause disturbance. Because we are to do both of those. Without a doubt. Sometimes though, it gets thrown into awkward situations and conversations. The root of it should be in Scripture "Your kindness leads to repentance." In actuality, we love all. We don't love sin. But if we can show God's kindness, we will truly be loving the person because it is his kindness (not ours) that leads the sinner to repentance. Yeah, manipulation is in that one. Standards are not bad. Standards say that little Timmy can move on to the fourth grade because he has mastered addition, subtraction, multiplication, and more. Standards keep my home from being covered in paper clippings on the floor. Standards keep people from being with someone that will only bring their worst to a relationship. Standards keep Christians from acting out. Don't hate the standards. Run to them. Meet them. Exceed them. This week has made me feel like a big ole failure. Why? Thank you for asking, y'all are always so kind. Honestly, I don't know why! It's this gnawing feeling inside of me that says I'm doing it all wrong! Truth be told, I'm not, but I believe this attack comes at me to throw me off my game. I scrutinize everything I'm doing with my children. Where did I go wrong? Is it the lack of protein? (He he!) No, it's me being overly judgmental of myself because I assume others are doing the same.
There are these overwhelming times of fluster and hustle and constant movement. Those are the times I feel like I'm not doing my best. And the truth of it is, I'm just in a busy season. I'm not under prepared to get to these places. I factor in time for traffic. I make sure my kids are dressed and have their bags packed for the evening. Dinners are set. Nobody is late. Nobody shows up hungry. I have it all taken care of. And I stop and think to myself, "This is only for a season." I have always loved Ecclesiastes 3. For those that don't know, or don't want to look it up, it goes as this: For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace. (Verses 1-8) I think every time I struggle, my mind refers back to this. I turn it into mom-isms. A time to run around like a crazy woman, a time to sit alone at the table. A time to ask the kids to put on shoes, a time to scream because in three minutes no shoes have been placed on a single foot. A time to cook a delicious well balanced meal, and a time for PB&J in the car so we aren't late! There are so many times that I think, "Will I actually miss this in life?" And in those moments I look at my children and see how much they've grown in a year. Soon they will drive themselves all over creation. Soon I will just show up for performances, testing days, tournaments, games, or whatever the level of performance is for the activities they're involved in. Not long after that they will be off to college somewhere and off to careers, significant others, and will no longer be "my problem." There is a time for weeping that they will be gone and a time for laughter that they will be gone. My findings of failure don't come in the right here and right now. I find myself failing in their future. Sure, it sounds ridiculous. I'll give you that. But ever since wombdome I have thought of who my children would become. I didn't think about how many home-runs would be scored in their final game. I worried about who they would be as humans making an impact in this world. Tuesday I found myself driving back to my home to grab pants for Caleb. I reminded him to pack his pants and belt in his bag. I asked him if he did it, more than once. Yet, he accidentally packed his shirt, not his pants. We left the dance studio in a flurry to grab pants and rush off to taekwondo. I couldn't decide if it was my fault for not checking in his bag or his fault for packing the wrong piece of his dobak. If I had opened his bag and checked, I wouldn't have been trusting his word. But at the same time, he's an 8 year old boy that can't remember to make his bed every morning despite the fact that he has been doing it for over a year now. The confusion within me made all of it worse. Somehow I had failed - and I can't figure out which way! I suppose it would depend on your views of parenting that you would decide which way my failure fell. Regardless of the final judgment, I went back to my view of Caleb in twenty years. It's my job, in this season, to prepare him for his future. Will he be responsible enough to pack his own bag correctly in twenty years? I hope so. Will he be rushed or calm? Will he think through the traffic to drive to wherever he is going? I hope so. I may have dropped the ball by not checking his bag, but I'm pretty sure he is going to make sure his pants, and not shirt, are packed properly. So my failing can turn to excelling in the future. And besides, this is just a season. In time, Caleb's taekwondo classes will be later because he will be a higher rank. Then again, in time his dance classes might be later as he progresses there as well. I guess we'll have to see what that season of life holds for us. Although that day made me want to break down, I tried my best to use it as a way to build up. I tried to keep silent, but I had to speak. There is a time for everything. Silence would only force me to stew. Speaking about my frustration with having to drive all the way back home to turn around and pass the dance studio to get to taekwondo hopefully taught Caleb to be more careful in packing his bag. I chose to speak for my son's future wife. (You're welcome, young lady.) There will be a time for my failures. There will be a time for my success. For now my biggest failure will be not snuggling on the couch and watching enough movies with my greatest successes. Words are power.
Perhaps you have heard it said, "It is better to keep one's mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and prove it. I remember reading that in high school and immediately feeling convicted. I have an older brother. Despite my efforts to educate myself properly, I know that his vocabulary has always, and will always, surpassed mine. This often meant that my brother would have a far superior response to anything said in mockery. I couldn't win the war, let alone a battle. Then one day I decided to stop responding because I knew I had nothing that could win. My silence only made things worse. My father would think that I was just being over emotional and couldn't take a joke. I was figuring out the art of word battles was not my territory and decided to let it slide. So instead of just losing a battle of wits to my brother, I lost the battle of "playing it cool" in sight of my father. There was never any winning. I realized quickly, however, that my words couldn't be used against me. There was no way to twist and contort my words into something that worked into my brother's mockery. Sure, I was thought of having thin skin and being too sensitive, but that was just rumor of a father, not fact. I began to feel empowered because I didn't have to respond though I was goaded. I could be perfectly happy, distraught and hurt, or angry as a hornet, but my silence didn't tell them which. I'm sure my facial expressions told, but I began to work on those as well. I was taught in church that life and death are in the power of the tongue. Proverbs 12:18 says, "The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing." I think I could just walk away from the computer and leave that. We have been on both sides of that as receivers and givers. We have been pierced. We have pierced. We have brought healing. We have been healed. When I began to add those two pieces of wisdom together, I found myself getting quieter and quieter. I did not want to pierce and I did not want to look a fool. I began to become a wallflower of sorts. Granted, fighting depression caused me to move more to the outsides than the average teen, but I also had more and more reason to be quiet. I became the observer. Over and over again I stayed quiet and spoke when necessary. I find myself doing that a lot these days. I try to break out of my comfort zone and speak to people I normally wouldn't. I can be pleasant. But overall, I stay quiet. You might be giving me a digital high five right now. Thank you. But please, let's wait. In my silence, I also withheld healing. For so long I figured I had nothing to say that people would want to hear. There were times I attempted to speak life and was spat at in vile acid. I shut up more and more. Then one day I was told that I was being selfish. I looked at the woman who said it like she was nuts. She said that I had plenty of life bringing words that I was not in fact bringing to people because I was choosing to not speak and was, therefore, selfish. We're humans. We don't get to be one way or the other. There are times for silence and times for speaking. There are times to bring life and times to stifle the sword. It's maturity that knows the difference. There are times when you should laugh and joke with your friends, and times where those same jokes will bring you stares of horror and disgust. There are times when being silent is the best for your loved ones and a time where silence will kill those same relationships. We can't choose to be one or the other. We simply have to know when to speak and when to be quiet. When will the words cut wounds or heal? When will your quiet bring strength or pain? Each situation will be different, but it is our job to wade through each time and do what is best. We cannot choose to not live and grow and stay in our selfish states. How often have we heard the phrase, "There are two types of people in this world..." followed by whatever motivational mumbo jumbo the speaker was going for? There are those that are on time and those that are late. There are the people that exercise and the people that don't. There are readers or TV watchers. I have to say, I'm all these people. I pride myself in being on time, but sometimes life gets in the way. I love my exercise. I need it. But there are days I need a break. All I want is a good book, my hammock, and a "cool" autumn day (here in SC that's about 70 degrees!). I also want to watch my shows on Wednesday nights.
We like to lump people into groups, don't we? When we lump people into groups it gives us the opportunity to be surrounded by others that share our mind sight while also condemning the others for being so offensive to those around us in our higher order group. We seem to be in this constant state of agony when dealing with people. Nothing is ever good enough. And let's face it, that person is not changing. I think that is probably the worst judgment we leave on people. We believe that people can't change. Life experience teaches us that there needs to be a catastrophic event for people to change it seems. The always angry person gets cancer. They have two options. They can continue to be angry because now they really earn the right to be angry, or they can find the beauty in life that creates a more peaceful atmosphere. Vice versa: The always cheerful person gets cancer. They can stay cheerful knowing that each day is a blessing, or they can get angry because being cheerful got them cancer. I have seen that people say things like, "That's just the way I am" as an excuse to continue to do things they know are not the best practices. What do you mean, Jewel? So glad you asked! I have known a few people in my life that are perpetually late. Instead of setting an alarm earlier or planning better, they simply acknowledge that they are late and decide that they will never change it. Well, that is their choice after all. I see it often in the fitness world. People have the capability of doing the work that needs to be done, eating well, etc. and just don't like to so they quit. The waistline creeps back out. The fat accumulates under the chin. The pounds act like they were just on vacation but are happy to get back to normal life. The reason that people do not change is not because they can't. I wouldn't say that it is because they don't want to. People do not change because it is hard. This is the typical reason for diets not sticking. We want tasty, caloric, fried, sweetened, you name it, foods. Fruits and veggies are not every person's go to (exception: people like my daughter that will eat fruit all day if I let her). I've been pushing the mindset with my people lately while training that we get diamonds from coal only once pressure and fire are applied, and applied for a long time. Change takes a lot of doing what we do not naturally want to do. Another way to look at this idea would be the people that say, "either you have it or you don't." I immediately picture some talent agent in Hollywood in the 1950's saying this to some busty, blonde that can't act. Maybe you envision something else (I hope so). We look at someone and say that they just don't have what it takes. But when given the opportunity, that person can work and grow and become a person that does have what it takes. It may not come natural, but with work, it can happen. In my opinion there are three types of people in the world. There are the people that believe they are good enough right where they are and have no desire to change. There are the people that believe that they are not good enough and will never be so what's the point in trying (uh, for your job if you're perpetually late). And then there are the people that believe they are not good enough, and are willing to work to change. That third group of people are the ones I want to be around. I want to motivate, and be motivated by, the people that are always growing and changing for the better. If I ever believe I'm good enough at any one part of my life, I know that failure will come shortly after. If I believe I'm not good enough and know I can never get better, then I am a failure. Failure will always be the result of never trying. I will encounter failure when I'm trying to better myself as well. However, if my failure still lands me ahead of where I was previously, it is moving in the correct direction. Ever forward. |
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