Back in the Saddle!

I am resurrecting the old blog! Why? Because I have so much to say. 

No, really. I am a bit of a writer, and I haven't been writing so I believe this has contributed to massive insomnia for me. So early this morning I was reminded that I used to actually spend some of my day in the practice and art of writing. I have been writing, just more academic papers for my degree in Biblical Studies. I was inspired by my school, and a recent very affirming email that I was a good writer...even if the content of my writing was not appreciated in this particular email, it was the spark I needed to basically get back in the saddle so to speak and get  typing.

Things I tend to write about. My life. Theology. Being a wife, a mother and Biblical Studies student.

Sometimes I rant. Sometimes I just share a little perspective that I think is missing in the larger conversation in a progressive community. I am kind of a feminist, but not the militaristic crazy hair brained kind. More of a Deborah from the book of Judges feminist, which means that I really appreciate when men grow spinal cords and stand up for what is right instead of letting the ladies do all the dirty work. See what I mean? Feminist...but not shave my head bald and sing ripping up a picture of the Pope. Well...I might do that. But that's another story for another blog.

So with the resurrection of my blog, kindly click on to follow me and trust me...you won't be bored with my posts. 

My Memory of Love

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13

Ten years ago I was working on the 42nd floor of an office building in midtown, happily sipping my morning coffee as it was the first day back from a lovely vacation at the Outer Banks. I slipped into the elevator and making my way to my desk when I noticed my co workers faces crowded around my office. (I thought I had left something very interesting on my desk to my mistake.) They were all looking south towards the Twin Towers one was on fire. I sank to my seat and turned on the radio and instantly saw the plane hit the south tower. Several co workers lost it, I remember knew my family would be worried so I called my Mom and told her to turn on the news. Once she turned on the news, our conversation turned serious.

I instantly knew from friends that refused to work in the Twin Towers that it took 2 and half hours to evacuated those buildings because of the past bombing attempt experience several years before. That conversation with my friend ran through my head, wondering what could be going on down there when soon after that I watched the first tower fall. I was shocked. I had just witnessed a complete slaughter of thousands of people." What is going on?" I silently asked God.

At this point my co workers were a mess. My buddy Rob was screaming. People were holding onto each other crying. What was I to say? I had no words of comfort for anyone. I picked up the phone and told my husband to call his family and just let them know we were safe, because I knew distant friends would wonder. Phone lines started going down. I tried to call my boss. No answer. This worried me a bit. Especially as the second tower right before my eyes. Imploded. The second witness to a devastating slaughter of human life. People started leaving the office because we were so high and close to the Empire State Building. Over the radio reports of a plane in DC, and soon one down in Pennsylvania close to my hometown. It was getting a bit much, especially as I had family that worked in the Pentagon and my family lived close in the area the 4th plane went down. All four planes hit close to home.

I decided to leave the office, I left a message on my bosses machine. People were making mass exoduses towards their homes in droves, crossing bridges covered in dust and debris to get home. No transportation. The city in complete lockdown. Soon, walking up 7th Ave the city was crying with sirens. Chaos. Sadness. Terror. Dismay. My husband agreed to ride our motorcycle to Columbus Circle...”I’ll meet you at the fountain.” People walked past crying, running, some people sitting on the ground. Few talkers and no one was ambitious in New York, except firemen that day. I came to that place, still shocked, still unable to speak and the traffic and crowds were so bad that I couldn’t move to get to our meeting place. Then I saw my darling’s red hair on the oblesk at the rotary, he was looking for me. I waved. we met. We sat at our fountain and spoke few small words. Not much I could say really. We got on the motorcycle and weaved our way through traffic to our apartment. What now? The phone calls weren’t coming through. Our neighborhood was completely still. No one moved. We knew we all collectively had been through something horrible. Find your people, your friends, your clan. That became the imminent job for several days. People went missing. Never made it. Evacuations downtown. There’s a rumor someone’s husband was due to fly out, but got bumped and was saved. Chance?

We decided to take a walk in the park. There was not much else we could do and I needed to process stuff. We walked for several minutes when a dog approached us with a belt around it’s neck. It was a stray. No one was going to do anything with the dog. I coaxed it and put our dog’s leash on it. The chances of a shelter taking it in were pretty good. The dog had clearly been abandoned and abused. Later I tried to pet it and it lunged at me. By midnight we drove over to the shelter in Harlem and handed the dog over to them. The world was not right, even the animals knew. I finally broke down and cried in the car on the way home. The thought of what really was lost that day was overwhelming. It’s taken years to process 9/11 for many people, myself included.

I noticed the day after Sept 11...was that people bound together in love, compassion and good will like never before. Many turned to God. People hugged each other. They reconcilled with family memebers. They made room on the subways or housed a co worker who couldn’t get access to their apartment downtown. Today in face of a country divided by different ideologies, differences of opinions and different convictions we should take time to reflect what good came out of 9/11. The hurt and sting is still there. It’s 10 years down the line. Pictures and memorials. Flowers, tiles, notes, pictures secured to fences and walls to honor people and place. Heros died. Loved ones were lost. Families were devastated.

Occasionally when I visit New York now, I remember how I would look at those towers at as a needle on a compass as to which way I needed to walk.... uptown, downtown, east side, west side. That compass is gone. The air space hangs now like a ghost. Hollow. Empty. Scarred with emptiness. But still reminding me of the people that ran into danger to save others.The heros that knew they were facing death by a mere attempt at the impossibility to save both another and themselves. The people that continue in their bravery that serve us in this way everyday and do not let their fear of the past cripple them from carrying on today. Remember the love for each other that came out of all that mess? This is what I want to remember most about that day.

Get Some Fresh Air

So, after a summer long neglect of posting anything on my blog the weather has churned up more than just hurricane Irene but that post storm feeling of a clear day, a new season and the fact that that it’s time to get back to business baby!

I think in looking back in my huge attempt to keep the summer simple. I failed.

We’ve had an amazing summer- I’ve taken the second class needed in my Biblical Studies degree in the Old Testament while single handed (one is holding a book) managed to keep the kids entertained, fed and somewhat safe. We did a lot of swimming at our lake beach, had a vacation on Cape Cod, drove out to my parents in Pennsylvania. The big ticket happening was that my boys all got brand new shiny bikes for their birthday. We have also done some camping with our church at Indian Hollow and in the backyard during those extremely hot days. But, like all journeys sometimes it’s been uphill. We’ve battled lice, now fleas with the dog and trying desperately to get the kids to read just twenty minutes a day in preparation for 3rd grade and not letting their brains ooze out of their ears before they graduate elementary school.

I think the most memorable event this summer, was hosting a Fresh Air Fund child that came up from New York City. These kids come from poor disadvantaged areas of the city, and many of them have never been away from home or put bare feet in backyard grass. We took our friend Evan camping and he was exposed to a lot of new things. Like water. Sleeping in a tent. Riding a bike. The highlight of our friend Evan’s trip, was his chance to sit on a horse. He’d never seen a real live horse before...not even in Central Park. Because he was one of those kids who even at the age of 8, had never gone to Central Park.

Last year in Red Hook Brooklyn (now much of it is flooded after hurricane Irene) I watched kids play in the hot oppressive city by throwing water on each other from garbage pails. It was a scene like Sesame Street, fire hydrant going and kids having a blast. My kids love playing in “the hood” with city kids when we visit our friends in NY. But last year it was really clear to me, after living in New York City for 17 years and now living in Amherst all that I have access to and what these kids don’t have. So thus, the pressing of what God would have me do. It was clear that we were to sign up to do the Fresh Air Fund program, the nation’s oldest non profit in our country’s history.

Despite trying to keep our schedule simple and failing mostly because we crammed so much in in so little time, I feel like what was meant to happen and the experiences my kids had were vital to their perspective. In opening our home to someone that does not have the same kind of home life that they do, we also exposed parts of ourselves that are resistant to sharing “our daily bread” with someone that might be disadvantaged. It was in the study of James that deeply convicted me that my children needed to be trained from a young age about what it means to truly have faith. Not just going to Vacation Bible School or camp and learning about Jesus in church, but how we need to have faith in action in our own lives regardless of what other people do or don’t do.

James 2:14What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 17So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

What amazed me about the Fresh Air Fund is it’s history. It’s rooted in this scripture. Truly the man Rev. Parson’s was a visionary but he also called his church to take heartfelt faith in heartfelt action. Today there are only 18 families in the Pioneer Valley that host a child. We are a so called “friendly town” for the Fresh Air Fund and this year the director told me the buses in years past used to be filled with kids. This is not because the need has gone down to host. If we are a “friendly town” it seems to me that we are not that “friendly” in reality.

I would say the numbers clearly reflect the state of faith in New England. We want social justice, we want to educate the poor, we want to give kids like these opportunities here in the Pioneer Valley but in opening our homes for two weeks? That is a pain in the butt. It’s a hassle. Yeah, parents have to work. Yeah, you don’t have space. Yeah, you go on vacation. This agency was created during the era of immigration and tenements in NYC a time when kids used to work in factories and sleep 8 to a room. Do you think a clean air mattress and a week at a local camp isn’t the most exciting thing in that child’s life? An experience like this can have the potential to change not just your kids perspective, but that child learns there is something more to life beyond his neighborhood. Many have been propelled to strive for an education and rise above their current situation,like Mariah Carey. You can speak Truth into that child’s life. And most of all, it does something in you. God worked out a lot of kinks, more than what I thought I had.

Consider being a host for a child next year. Let’s be more friendly. Let’s have more faith.
I would love to see those buses filled again.
http://www.freshair.org/programs/our-history

Confessions of a Soulless Suburbanite

I am reading an amazing book right now called Half Broke Horses by Janette Walls who also wrote the Glass Castle, both being true memoirs of family. If anyone is looking for a book to read
quickly I highly recommend either book. I love reading memoirs, travel writing and a gripping story that displayed culture of different times and places. I’ve been reading aloud to my husband as we clip away at the Pennsylvania highways to return to our home in New England. Several things that we have discovered in reading both these books is that our kids are way way coddled and spoiled and live in the lap of luxury. Second is that we are grateful we didn’t live in the wild west growing up or during the time that these books were portrayed. I vicariously have been a homesteading rancher for 3 days reading this story. But like all good books do it’s made me see things with a different perspective for the time being...and here’s whats cooking up in my brain.

Everybody chooses to live or move on from where they grew up for different reasons. It’s also interesting to hear how places change over the years. Both my hometown has changed and the town in which I live has changed for the locals that have remained here since childhood. Trees grow, they are cut down, developments are made or things torn down, road widen to make way for more traffic or areas by passed and drain all business away from a once thriving business district, shopping centers are built and family owned shops close down after generations of success. In the book I’m reading it talks about the development of the west and how the over grazing, lack of water, drought and dust bowl almost regularly did family ranches in and not to mention the changing perspective of what “progress” was for the nation at large. Cars, airplanes and electricity all changing our culture.

When I was a young child I loved the woods behind my house. I spent a lot of my free time with my friends building tree houses or hiking through the winding paths with my dog Blondie. We also loved playing flashlight tag and in winter sledding down the pipe line which was as steep as a ski slope. Creeks were clean and I spent time making dams and looking for crayfish. We were untethered compared to some children now and the outdoors without Wii or computers were our main source of entertainment. When big bulldozers came to clear those woods away for the development of new construction of homes that are now the more desirable homes that people crave I felt a grave injustice had occured to my neighborhood and...myself. I mourned for weeks the forest that today is completely filled to the brim in my hometown with McMansions. I sat every morning that summer eating my cereal and watching them rip all the trees out and I felt like chaining myself to the trees that I loved to climb. Do one of those tree hugging protests like out in crazy California or Washington State. I started really identifying with conservationists and those hippies that lived in redwoods for a year to stop the loggers in the Pacific Northwest.

There many things I loved about growing up where I did. But even now, everytime I return home there is another strip mall, a new chain restaurant, and the highway is much much wider to help the progress of people moving out of higher taxed and dense areas. There are no sidewalks, the farmland is at this point mostly developed now with new constructed homes, I’ve never seen anyone in the few local parks and nothing is a walkable distance to anything and there is no public transportation. On a recent discourse with another hometown fogie I made a joke about some cultural aspects that I always saw as funny about PA. It didn’t go over very well with one person in-particular...to which it was not meant to offend however it hit a raw nerve with someone. Point is that I never felt that I “fit in” with the culture in my hometown white collar upper middle class suburban expanding sprawl. I was an animal lover, conservationist who didn’t see the need to hunt deer or bear the day after you eat your fill of turkey on Thanksgiving and I certainly didn’t understand or could have cared less about sports...especially football. I was artsy fartsy and I love the ocean and the overstimulating excitement of the melting pot of New York City’s mixture of cultures. I also loved working farms and dreamed of living on a farm one day myself. I love the Amish...to which I still occasionally threaten! I have always had a hunger to experience other cultures, and different ways of life and a very wide variety of diverse people. So I just will say what I have to say....suburban sprawl is souless. Do we all need to be so damn close to a Panera Bread and a Starbucks? When a community values new construction over smart sustainable community planning it rips the soul out of a part of that place if it ever had one to begin with. That’s what happened when those bull dozers did when they ripped my childhood “playground and park” and poured cement in the name of progress. This is the scar that will never lead me back to my hometown. The same thing happened to me on 911 in New York when I watched my beloved city wounded. Not all hurts come from people. Progress looks different to me and this is why I live where and how I do. It’ important to preserve land for our children, it imperative to plan for the future and health of our neighborhoods by providing safe routes to school and natural spaces for discovery. It’s not utopia by any means, but I must commend the town I live in for spending years of investment into our now future. It is a unique place to live with a lot of character, soul and vision of how to preserve our values well into the future.

Drinking Koolaid by the Campfire

Okay, now that we still have Australia showing up on the map after the May 21 hysteria I think it’s safe to say we told you so. I am really amazed at the aspect of the frenzy and it’s media coverage. You would have thought Micheal Jackson was resurrected. Many people on Facebook and blogs have written about such things, and also ripped into the community of Christians and any other company of people with faith. That’s fine. We still love them and we love their dogs too.

We all had a bit of fun about it. I had friends that did a great joke and put their clothes at their desk so when their boss came in the “joke” was on him who would be left behind...yet he was one to play into the May 21st stuff. We’ve heard the crazy stories of people selling up and doing it tough in the RV and spreading the Word...at $4 bucks a gallon in a gas guzzlin’ mobile home. I’ve always wanted to go cross country in an RV..but I can’t afford the gas. We tragically also have heard about the women who killed her own children and then took her own slice out of life with her knife. Earlier this year,we’ve got the Koran burning pastor in Florida and more skeletons in our doctrinal closet will be found and so...I could go on and on about stories like this. There are two things that I think of by the way when I hear the words Camping and Kool Aid. Jim Jones and David Koresh. I personally think we should change to lemonade in our church...I hate red punch for this reason. It just wigs me out. Stories like these and the media frenzy do not paint anyone with faith in a good light let alone a person of faith that actually believes in the return of Christ for that matter and makes me look like a lunatic to the world. But again, that’s fine. Even Jesus’ own brothers didn’t believe in him as the Messiah during his ministry on earth.

I feel for the families that have put so much of their hope in a feeble person such as Mr. Camping. I feel for Mr. Camping who at his ripe old age is scratching his head and going back to the drawing board on his life’s work...and all for nothing. Dude...your not that special that God is going to give you the time and the day of His coming before he lets Jesus know. This is just a very self centered way of thinking and it actually is not living out any aspect of faith. In the meantime, Family Radio has accumulated 80 million dollars worth of donations. They are rolling in it like the money machine. You heard me...80 MILLION DOLLARS (said with Mr. Evil’s pinky voice) This man Camping is a charlatan, a medicine man and a false prophet. Do you know if in the Old Testament that if some one's prophecies didn’t come to 100% fruition they were stoned to death? YIKES!! That’s how high the expectation was for the position and not exactly a sign on bonus to encourage people to ascribe to that position. According to the Old Testament law of Moses, Howard Camping is basically a false prophet and deserves to die and this actually is what many even worldly people out there think he should get. What do we do as people of faith with the likes of a false prophet in our midst? It kinda says what God does with someone who is a false prophet.... it somewhere in the end....of the...Bible and it doesn’t look pretty....lots of fire and stuff...let’s move on.

Well, I have come to know the only way your going to know truth from fiction is by not just knowing the truth...but LOVING the truth. There are so many other aspects to faith than what has been displayed with the latest American Prophet reality show we’ve just seen. What about selling all our possessions and giving it to the poor? What about loving your enemies? How about loving God? What about loving each other? What about taking care of the most vulnerable in our society to loneliness and depression or children with AID/HIV in Africa? What about spending that money to help the people of Haiti or Japan or help the south with all it’s floods? What about making disciples of Christ? I’ve seen pictures of these families that have bought into this movement and they look like a typical American family. A family on vacation not a mission trip to Africa.

So now that it’s May 22...now what? Maybe the likes of Mr. Camp will not be that appealing. Maybe they will dig deep themselves into scripture and discover what God really wants them to do until His return. It might look a lot different that what they expected if they look at what the Bible literally says. God still loves them just like he loves the people who made fun of them, mocked them and called them crazy. (Even ME) To live a life of faith is letting go and letting God handle the rest of the big stuff like the “end of the world” . What will the of the world look like according to what God promises? I know this, He promises never to leave us nor forsake us...he will and does make ALL THINGS NEW. He created all things, and sustains all things. He is the one on the Throne, not our feeble minded ideas of who He is. Faith is a HOPE, not a curse. This is what I count on as a person of faith. There are many many theological aspects to living a life of faith and my life looks nothing, nothing like this typical American family that bought into a false teaching. It seems like if people sold everything they own to ride around in a $50,000 RV and guzzle gas, leave their children, leave spouses...and in one case...even kill their own children because they thought it was the end of the world that they missed not just the boat...but the point of having faith all together

Couture Closet Cleaning

Sorry I don't have something more catchy like the word "poop" on my blog...obviously I get more readers with words like that! Onto the next subject at hand...spiritual closet cleaning!

As a seasoned fashion designer in my past life I always looked forward to Spring. Here in the Northeast, we’ve had a long long winter and now with the trees blooming, pollen flying around, the season of change certainly is in the air. I used to plan as a designer almost a year in advance, search the trends in the market of fashion and translate them into marketable products. I have to admit, I loved... loved my job. I still have a deep emotional attachment to the seasons and how they evoke certain states of mind in society and how that carries over into something as simple as our culture in the form of dress. My favorite thing about being a designer was watching the trends that I had investigated and researched slowly become reality as people bought certain pieces of clothing and that I had the foreknowledge that floral prints or certain color combos were going to be a major trend in the stores. Everything believe it or not influences things like hem line, silhouette, the type of fabric used, colors, merchandising or a detail like ruffles...right down to the political environment, the movies that win the Oscars, the economy and other real time events.

One of the most important things that prevented me in my job to move ahead mentally and artistically was if I didn’t have a chance to clean out my office after each season that was crazily done to meet deadlines for the manufacturing process. I just simply couldn’t work on spring when the winter collection of whatever I was working on graced the presence of my desk.

I recently did a major cleaning raid of my closet, it is spring cleaning time after all. I had to look at each piece of clothing and in some cases mourn the loss of how wonderful a bargain that outfit was, or how great I looked in that size whatever skirt....as I have put on the post child pounds. My world as a stay at home mom is much different than it was 8 years ago. I no longer need the same kind of wardrobe I had when I worked in an office. I have to admit, I’ve held onto some pieces thinking I’ll return to that world of fashion or a work environment that would have me dress for success. My uniform as a Mom is different. Yoga pants, jeans, sneakers or shoes that enable me to chase after my 3 kids in the mud are more suitable for my current job and the accessories are more in line with duffle bag than a Coach clutch.

I still can’t move forward menality without cleaning the closets every season but it’s amazing how this last clean out contained a third of my closet! Boy, I had high hopes in whatever was in that closet for 8 years. It’s made me think about how important it is to clean our closets out both physically and spiritually. There are some things I personally hold onto in that closet that are simply unused, or that I am holding onto for no good reason at all other than comparing my now life with the past. In scripture there are several references to “putting off” certain attitudes in the hearts like the anger of man, or to “put on” the garments of praise. Dropping your favorite dress that you haven’t worn in a long long time in that pile of "never to wear again" takes a certain resolve over the emotional attachment or even to the reality...”girl you just ain’t gonna fit in that again” rings in my head along with "join weight watchers and you'll look great in that again". If my body changes, trust me...I'm going shopping for new stuff!

I don’t collect a paycheck as I did in the past. Unlike other professionals, my bonus comes in the form of a Mother’s Day surprise as my kids do their best to serve me a breakfast of champions in the form of saltine sandwiches and dates for breakfast, with a card from the heart written in the best miss spelled all capitol letters. On those days, well, lets just say I feel like I got a promotion to CEO of Calvin Klein.

As a Mom though I never went to "mom school" or studied parenting at a big university. I often feel unequipped to handle stuff down the road as many Moms do. I wish I had more foreknowledge however as Mom about the stuff down the road for my own kids good. Trends in society don’t look to great. Especially with that Lady Gaga hatching out of an egg in a meat dress. But I am throwing my old ways to the side and putting on God’s ways of handling the future. Sometimes it’s tough having emotional attachment to things that I’ve stored up in my spiritual closet, especially those not so flattering tendencies that I might occasionally think look or feel great on. So with the coming of a new season- I am giving it to the Salvation Army which is no ironic twist. I lay those garments of shame, pain and hurt at the cross of Christ and put on that pure white custom made for me priestly garment that He has for waiting for me. My reward in this job will not come from the world’s praises of men but in the hope that I was a godly Mom hear "well done" from my heavenly Father. In the meantime, I am still working on that along the way “putting off” those old clothes the world would influence me to wear or that I am so attached to.

What's in your spiritual closet that you could give to the Salvation Army?

Cooking over Poop & Other Strange Disorders

So I could totally write about so many interesting things this week, the day Osama Bin Laden died, Holocaust Remembrance Day, taxes, elections, earthquakes, floods, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. But I will not. I am writing to get something off my chest the subject of kids with ADHD and the high expectation of compliance in society- even in the church community.

You see, what do you do when the expectation of “obedience” is there but your kid just has behavioral issues that are chemical, and genetic and just simply looks disobedient and out of control. Do you beat it out of them? How much of a beating, how much of a time in isolation do you give...over and over and over again? In one breath the spiritual aspects of “obedience” is relevant and obligated, but also as a Mom of three boys with focusing issues, and that word..."distractibility"... I can tell you there are days I feel utterly emotionally defeated by the judgements of other people. My kids are feral even to my standards most days and I feel like sprinkling Ritalin in their cereal but really the reason I want to do that is not for MY benefit...it’s to comply to other’s expectations about how well they should act. I think the church should feel less like the world and be more of a refuge but sadly I think I am not alone in my isolated experience.

I will take this back to a church issue because I clearly posted a picture of Ezekiel bread for a reason. There are kids that sit all lovely and complient, participate in a worship service dressed in khakis and button down shirts and a tie. Lovely. This is not the picture of my family. My estimation is that they did not have an hour battle over “sensory” issues of how the clothing feels in “temperature or softness” that Sunday with all of their children. Now sit those well complient home schooled (I am not knocking homeschooling but drawing a contrast) children next to mine and the comparisons are vast. In the church community, do we see kids that have behavior and learning problems as “disobedient” little scoundrels having parents that simply do not have proper authority over their children? With reality show families like the Duggars that ooze Christian ideals...I think it gives a false expectation on families and what they should "look" like.

Seriously consider how you “judge” other peoples kids and their parents when that hellion is screaming in store or better yet having a freak out in church. Or do we support parents that at the end of the day- make decisions to love, keep the communication lines open, and an extra amount of grace is needed for all to survive...maybe more than what Leviticus demands simply because ADHD did not exist in Biblical times. How you judge that squirmy rambuncsious kid and his mother? I am not negating proper discipline by any means...no way...no how...but I am saying until people have lived with the same kind of issues as mine I would please ask that people refrain from judgement on my parenting perspective or the ability to withstand endurance at the end of the day. The end of the day I want my kids to know that God loves them, even with their feral ways. I mean really... John the Baptist eating locusts wearing sackcloth? Hello people this is not your pew sitting compliant child! Think about what John’s poor mother must have been seen as...well somewhat neglectful. And Ezekiel? Cooking over a pile of poop? My kids so would love to do that in the backyard of our church. And David....dancing naked before the Lord? He made his Father proud, but his cranky wife had a thing or two to say about that.They are going to break rules, push boundaries just like we do in our fleshly ways but I want them to know that they are accepted as they are. The discipline is because I love them, but I also KNOW they need an exorbitant amount of mercy and grace. I get to choose when that is.

I kind of wish the body of faith understood that too sometimes for parents of kids with ADHD. In more than just providing “programs” or Sunday school. The support of someone saying- “I thought I would loose it during those days” or “you are a great Mom and it must be extra difficult with not 1, not 2, but 3 kids with ADD” Some people would say their is no such thing as ADD/ADHD...that kids just need discipline or the father needs to discipline the “right” way not the “wrong” way. The school’s at fault, the kid is at fault or that kids is exposed to way to much violence. I will say this- when you know that your child has ADD because he can’t stop wetting the bed because his hormones are immature, or that he cracks his jaw, neck and cracks his knuckles out of impulse control issues, or has never been able to sit still (even inutero) and is propelled by his own interests over and above anyone else’s, temper tantrums hours long, low self esteem (regardless of how popular he is), high levels of frustration that manifest in feeling and being out of control and indulging his body to act out the frustration in either bodily harm to others (and later in life which we are trying to prevent...himself) or the obsessive tendencies to fight over a tiny lego piece with a sibling. I don’t think the behavior is because little Johnny just didn’t have the proper discipline. What motivates my kid, isn’t what motivates yours. In fact, the play between instant gratification and prolonged gratification while is also insight on our flesh natures while being so true, some of us have more fleshy natures than others. The kids with ADHD just where it on the outside instead of pushing way down somewhere it can't be dealt with. We all struggle with this. Why does one person pop a brownie in their mouth when feeling bad and another take a jog on a track? Motivation and gratification. Some people have learned habits and others have more tendency to have their brains function in a certain way and have mountains to climb to accomplish something like getting out bed. If people can relate to depression in adults within the body of faith (because they have experienced it) and approach that person with a comment like...”wow, you must want to kill yourself at the end of the day...have you tried just counting your blessings and just being happy?” For someone who has a chemical imbalance this is just the encouragement and support they need! NOT!

Prayer, encouragement, something that lifts someone up that says...”God loves you, and you are not alone. God has the power and ability to heal your depression.” For anyone that doesn’t believe in chemical ups and downs....ask a women going through menopause, or a pregnant women, or a women whose just lost a baby, or a women who has PMS or a women who suffers post pardum depression. We don’t point the finger at a women whose lost a baby and say “it must be something you ate” or “just relax and you’ll conceive” when really her body doesn’t produce enough estrogen to hold a pregnancy.

So why all the fuss Lucy2Shoes about ADHD and the church? Well...let’s stop blaming the parents for not keeping their kids “in control” as per the Bible. Let’s not see “obedience” the way it looks for the Duggars as the goal for kids with ADHD. Because essentially not seeing the difficulties of families with kids like this is basically no different than blaming a women for her lack of estrogen or the father for that matter. How about love, mercy and grace so that when kids with ADHD hate themselves because the world has rejected them or they don't meet up with even the church's standards of what "obedience" looks like...that they know a Father that loves them, accepts them for who God created them to be. I mean after all- we wouldn't have Ezekiel bread locust sandwiches cooked over poop without prophets that pushed the envelope at bit now would we?