This morning I again pulled away from the smothering hugs of my children.

It was the day my daughter asked me why I don’t like love.

It cut me straight through.

I paused with my coffee cup halfway to my lips, my finger poised to scroll down on my iPhone.

My eyes prickled and my ears got warm.

I couldn’t look at her.

“I’m broken.”

She nervously laughed and snuggled closer.

“It’s like a dog you abuse and beat and then expect it to let you pet it.”

She informed me that I am not beaten.

Wise girl!

“Not physically beaten, no. But words often hurt more. And I’m still scarred. It makes it hard for me.”

I’m not in denial so much anymore.

I’m not affectionate.

For years, I blamed it on my German-American heritage, my INTJ personality, that I need a cuppa before anyone should communicate with me.

Anything so that I wouldn’t have to confront it or change.

But there are studies that we need affection, human touch, at least a dozen occurrences of it every day for spiritual and mental health. For relationship.

My family needs more than a reluctant good morning hug and a tired good night kiss.

So, I retrain myself to lean in closer, accept the hugs and return them. To seek out my children randomly for affection.

Because I’ve noticed the kids don’t run to me for hugs so much as they used to. They’re learning a wrong way. It’s sad.

And my husband too.

He has suffered greatly by my lack of affection.

I don’t want to pull away anymore.

Why can’t I feel comfortable in my own skin?

My own space?

With my own voice?

With my long feet that I stumble over and fall up the stairs and knock the toes against the furniture…

How I want a bumper sticker to proclaim that I’m the best at something, anything.

Thirty eight years of sucking in my stomach and pushing up my nonexistent breasts and trying, trying, trying to walk like a model in heels without falling over.

Stifling the anxieties, pasting on that lipglossed smile that doesn’t quite reach my eyes…attempting hairstyle after hairstyle, trying to find who I am in a bottle from the salon.

Swinging wide on the pendulum of too much and never enough, desperate for balance but afraid to get off the seesaw.

Realizing that I’m failing miserably to hide my lessthan, nevergoodenough despite all the effort to appear ok.

When love is mere imagination, romance in books, a fantasy in movies, discussed at length in the Bible and at church…it’s hard to learn and practice when you don’t know what it looks like, how it tastes, the sound it makes, the exquisite scent of it, or how it feels.

Constantly looking over my shoulder to see who’s watching and listening is exhausting. Even thousands of miles away, the voices remind me that I am worthless.

And I still believe it.

They’re often louder than my present. They’re often overwhelming in their nearness.

And when I hear that tone in my own voice?

They succeed in destruction.

How I equally shrink into myself to not inconvenience others yet rail against everything to be noticed.

Accepting that I am just the right size for this space where God wants me.

It’s a concept that I must relearn and practice and remember every moment of every day.

So I can teach it to my children.

That they are important and loved and noticed and complete.

I did something differently this morning.

I didn’t shame my kids. I made a decision to be gentle and not angry.

I chose relationship over dysfunction.

I opened the dishwasher and noticed some of the dishes weren’t clean. A large plate blocked the spinny thing from spinning.

Ordinarily, I would be angry and take it out on my daughter (she loaded the dishwasher last night).

But I realize that she really doesn’t know sometimes. And I expect her to just know without my taking the time to teach her. And then I get upset. When it’s my fault for not teaching and guiding.

Shaming isn’t healthy nor does it produce any good results.

So, I calmly asked my daughter to check the dishwasher.

She went and looked and came back to report that it was fine.

I asked her how the dishwasher worked.

She waved her hand in a spinny motion.

I asked her to check the spinny thing.

She came in and lied that it spun just fine.

I still didn’t get upset.

I asked her to check the big blue plate that might be blocking the spinny thing. If the spinny thing didn’t spin, then the dishes wouldn’t get clean.

She went back to recheck. She admitted that it didn’t spin and asked if she needed to rerun the dishwasher.

I told her to take out the blue plate and go ahead and load the breakfast plates since there was lots of room. And rerun the dishwasher. And be more aware in the future instead of loading the dishwasher to block the spinny thing.

It was much better than our usual exchanges.

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. Psalm 32:8

Read my other posts: 31 Days of Dying to Self and 31 Days of Servant Leadership

Linking up: Enchanted Homeschooling Mom, My Joy-Filled Life

I’m working through some difficult issues involving my past.

Issues that confuse my understanding of feelings. Issues that lump all negative emotions together, not differentiating between anger and hate.

This is not healthy.

I’ve been winging it for years, but recently it’s become too much and my children are making me realize that our family is not ok.

My past affects my relationships. It affects my husband and children.

I am broken. Our family is broken.

And I vow to fix it.

I pray the damage that has been done the past fourteen years can be reversed and healed.

With God’s help, I will heal our family despite the legacy of my past.

I don’t like church.

I didn’t grow up in church and I always felt like I was missing out.

I wanted my kids to have more.

While I see numerous social media posts on Sundays and Wednesdays with all these images of church worship teams with all the lights and projector screens…the church your family has probably attended for generations and will for many more.

Our family bounces from church to church at a minimum of every three years.

It makes church time stressful. On top of all the other adjustments a military family faces, church should be a haven.

But it’s often not.

Most churches are friendly upfront, but soon their true colors shine and the smiles fade and we’re never invited to the inner circle, the home fellowship, the dinners. So, we go through the motions, attending the Sunday morning service and leaving immediately afterwards.

I often wonder if it’s because no one wants to get close since they know we’re transients.

Our last church was aloof for two years and we were finally feeling like we fit in the last year we were there.

Then we moved.

I’ve attended all different denominations and types: Church of God, Assembly of God, Presbyterian (Cumberland, PCUSA, and EPC), Lutheran (Missouri Synod), Catholic, nondenominational, Southern Baptist, Fundamental Independent Baptist.

While I understand that we’re none of us perfect, I have issue with some Sunday school teachers preaching one thing while living another. I have issues with brochures in the church lobby about how I should dress as a Christian, citing Scriptures out of context. That doesn’t make me feel welcome or loved.

Currently, we attend a service at the base chapel. There just aren’t very many English-speaking church services to choose from here off base.

Most Sundays, I pray to survive through the superficial “peace of Christ” greeting time so I can flip through the pew Bible, checking the chaplain’s 3-point monotonous sermon and reading tangents of interest. The traditional hymns are mostly just ok, nothing exciting but nothing no one knows. Better than some of the “Jesus is my boyfriend” music I’ve heard at some contemporary churches.

And too many churches are compromising to meet the desires of our society, backing down in fear of being sued over performing marriage ceremonies to same-sex couples. Looking the other way when leaders don’t have monogamous relationships or teachers cohabit with their significant others.

I don’t want to serve. I’ve served before. I’ve taught Sunday school and Wednesday night classes, watched toddlers in the nursery, planned events and dinners…and I’m tired and I just want a season to rest and worship. I feel guilty every time a request for volunteers is mentioned during announcements. I don’t want to fill out a background check form and have my whole life laid out on paper for strangers to wonder.

I don’t like AWANA. My kids participated on base one year and at a church another year and I just didn’t like the lack of organization and very little biblical teaching with an over-emphasis on competition and rewards. There was no purpose in it for us.

I see little point in most youth groups. I know what the local youth group was like when I was a teen because I attended just to have something to do on a Thursday night. Some groups are surely better than others, but most are for outreach to the lost and not so much a gathering place for educating Christian teens on Christian living. The few groups we saw before our eldest was of age were examples of what not to do as Christian teens. We’re not sure about the one on base right now, if it’s worth the time and effort to get my daughter there each Tuesday night, since it starts at dinnertime. We don’t really know the leaders well or what they teach. We feel Liz gets more leadership training at Civil Air Patrol. We prefer limiting our evening activities so we can eat family dinners together at least five times a week.

I don’t like women’s Bible studies. I really, really tried to participate in PWOC and it ended up just being not for me. I couldn’t keep up with the politics and I felt like I was neglecting my family. I don’t like Beth Moore or most of the other popular books that women’s groups seem to read. All the touchy feely, name it and claim it, and you’re really ok “Bible” studies that have so little of the actual Bible to back up anything that is said. For too many, it was social time and not learning time. It was a waste of my time.

Since I don’t feel we’re getting much out of church and it’s my responsibility anyway to make sure my children have biblical education, we supplement at home.

For now, we’re reading Jesus Calling as a family every morning – each at his or her own level – the girls (age 7 and 8) have this one and my son (age 4) has this one.

During school time, we’re finishing up What We Believe: What On Earth Can I Do?and the girls like the Studying God’s Word workbooks. I think Alex is almost ready for the first workbook.

Before bed, we read a chapter of a classic literary novel and a story from The Golden Children’s Bible.

I also love to discuss creation and God on nature walks. It’s one of my favorite ways to worship.