The Other Side of the Gate

I have a confession to make to everyone here.


I am not an expert. In anything. At all. Not even a little.

I was a pretty excellent student in school and I studied all kinds of things over the years. However, none of those things have ever translated into a skill set for which people hand me money in exchange for my specialized knowledge, ability, service, or good. I am a regular person who lives regular days and writes stories about what I think I may have learned. Then I post those stories amidst a flurry of other people telling you all the "must-haves," "must-dos," "seventeen-things-you-should's," and "how-to's" and I get all conflicted about it.

I am a really thoughtful person, therefore, I am a really thought-full person. I formulate an awful lot of opinions based on a limited amount of facts, because that is what my brain has been taught to do all those years in school. And I really do believe that critical thinking is a good thing.

But thinking and knowing are two different things.

This morning I was doing my Bible study and I came across a passage I had never noticed before.

Allow me to set the scene:
King Herod Agrippa had arrested and executed certain members of the church and intended to do the same to Peter. He had Peter arrested and imprisoned, with a trial date (and likely execution) set the day following the Festival of Unleavened Bread. In the meantime, he put four sets of four soldiers to guard Peter while he was in prison. The day before his trial, an angel leads Peter through a miraculous prison escape. The first place Peter goes after he is freed is to tell his friends in a house just outside the city.

(This is the part where I started reading this morning.)

And as Peter knocked at the door of the gate, a damsel came to hearken, named Rhoda. And when she knew Peter's voice, she opened not the gate for gladness, but ran in, and told how Peter stood before the gate. And they said unto her, Thou art mad. But she constantly affirmed that it was even so. Then said they, It is his angel.
But Peter continued knocking: and when they had opened the door, and saw him, they were astonished. (Acts 12:13-16 KJV)

I laughed and laughed at so many parts of this story--which is maybe not all that reverent when you're reading the Bible, but this is funny stuff, people.
1. Late in the middle of the night, there is a knock at the gate. The men of the house are busy praying for Peter, so sweet Rhoda goes to get the door. Pro parenting tip for dads: If ever there is a late night knock at your door, don't send your little girl to go get it.
2. Girl gets so excited when she hears Peter calling at the gate she immediately runs to tell everybody, leaving him behind the shut gate. HA! Classic.
3. Girl: That thing that you have been praying nonstop for has happened! Men: You are cray.
4. While everyone is debating whether or not Peter exists, he is just standing there a-knockin' the whole time. (um, guys?? Still here. Is anybody...no? Ok.)

Oh man, I just loved all of this in so many ways.

But then...
I got to thinking. (It's what I do.)


I can be an awful lot like those men in the house. (I mean, I don't send my children to answer the door late at night, but otherwise I'm pretty par for the course.) I am a reasonably intelligent person with a pretty good grasp of the way I think things should play out. When I get surprising information contrary to those expectations, I either
1) think the person is crazy,
2) think the person is mistaken, or
3) open the issue up for discussion/debate.

But what if there is a better way?

All silliness aside, the crazy thing about this story is that it is essentially about a whole bunch of people arguing over the likelihood of something when the ACTUAL ANSWER was right outside their door. Y'all, we do this all the time!! These were reasonable men. They were probably making their assumptions from pretty solid ideas. But the only FACT of the matter was standing on the other side of their discussion.
The coolest thing about our access to information these days is that we have an extraordinary foundation on which to formulate our ideas and opinions about the world. And, we can have some really eye-opening and interesting discussions with people to help give ourselves a broader scope. It's so easy to base opinions on what we *think* we know, but oftentimes the actual answer is sitting there--right outside the area of conversation.
Just a-knockin'.

In a world where we are constantly invited to debate the issues, sometimes we are better served to go to the gate and see for ourselves.

And hear me out, this doesn't even have to be so politically-charged.

I am HORRIBLE at starting new tasks because I always play the devil's advocate for my new ideas.
It looks like this:

My Spirit: Maybe if I made an effort to {try new thing; talk to new person; go somewhere different; begin new project; start doing this one thing differently} that would be a catalyst for a really good thing for me.
My Brain: I disagree. Here is a list of 9,925,514 ways you will fail and this will all go catastrophically wrong or not change a single thing for you at all.

I have to laugh at my men in the house again, because the thing that they were arguing about was essentially something that they all were rooting for. Whether they believed it could be true or not, nobody who was in that house was going to be sad if they saw Peter standing there. And truthfully, their arguing was so unnecessary. Either the man was there or he wasn't. What in the world kept them from going to the gate?!

The same unnecessary scenario is true for me, too. If I got the momentum my heart hopes for, my brain wouldn't have any reason to complain. It's not like the two aren't on the same team--I don't think I'm that crazy.

So what if I just went to the gate and looked anyway? What if I just did the one thing... made the one change... explored the one different area...
I could debate every area of the issue indefinitely, or I could just get up and check it out. Again, I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that
Either way, my answer is on the other side of the gate.



What about you? What is the thing you are unsure of but want to find out? What is the thing that seems unlikely but that you're really hoping for? What would it mean for you if you went to the gate and found it waiting there for you? What could that change about your story?

What are you waiting for, friend?
Quit talking and go look.

(Also, please note the tiny piece of my deer friend just beyond my gate :) )

Spur One Another

Many moons ago, about six months after I had given birth to my first child, my husband bought me a jogging stroller.
I thought it was one of the meanest things he ever did to me.

I think he meant well by purchasing it. He had heard me complain several times about how I was finding it hard to carve out pockets of my day to work out, how I missed running on the treadmills and going to the gym, how I missed the pants my body used to fit in...
And I'm sure he missed having a partner who wasn't constantly complaining about all of those things.
So, you know, I'm pretty sure he did it for love.

It was hurtful enough that he had purchased the jogging stroller for me to use, but meaner still, he offered to go on evening runs with me and push the baby while I ran the trail. (I know. Rude.) He would spring down the trail all effortlessly with the baby happily banging her sippy cup on the sides of the stroller. Meanwhile poor Mom was bringing up the rear, huffing and puffing all by myself, watching those two get further and further away until I couldn't see them anymore. Between my gasping sounds, I would hear the distant squeal of my daughter's delight, acting like this whole situation was fun. The nerve of that baby.
It would get hard to motivate myself alone, so I would eventually slow to a walk until the two happy travelers would rejoin me on their turnaround. I would feel convicted to jog along behind them while I could see them, but I would return to my walk as soon as they faded from my sight. For several nights a week this was our routine, and aside from the part where I had to jog, I was happy with it.

Then my husband had to go and ruin it by expecting more from me. Gah!

I distinctly remember the day I really did feel like he was being mean to me. He and the baby started pulling out in front of me as they always did, and I followed well behind them---waiting for them to fall out of my view so I could run for fifty more feet and then quit.
But they never faded out of sight. In fact, my husband kept looking back at me and adjusting his speed to make sure I was keeping up.
Eventually, he turned around and started pushing the stroller backwards to watch me!

I hollered up at him, "Don't worry about me. Go on ahead."
But he didn't turn around! Instead, he hollered back at me,
"If I can do it backwards, you can do it forward!"

NO! What was he doing?!
He knew I was too proud to quit jogging if he was watching me so I trudged on and on. It was awful. I watched him push that stroller backwards up a hill as I struggled behind him. I wheezed. I griped. I eventually got sick on the side of the trail. I cried. He and the baby finished the rest of the walk beside me without any remark or condemnation.

But oh, once I caught my breath, I SURE HAD SOME WORDS.

"You're pushing me too hard! You shouldn't expect me to keep up with you, and you can't treat me like a soldier!!" I chided him.
I expected an apology. I didn't get one. He simply said, "Then you can't quit. You can slow down. Just don't stop."

My husband kept right on pushing that stroller for me through the years. He pushed two babies right next to me as I ran my very first race--the four of us finishing 8k together in 40 minutes. He carted us all out of town and brought those babies to hug their mama as I finished my first half-marathon. Now we shuttle our babies to school and go on morning runs together. He can still smoke me on the trail, always fading fast from my sights--yet he turns around backwards to check on me every now and then, because he knows it pushes me.
And after all these years that trick still works, because I don't want him to see me stop.

The other day as I lagged behind him, I thought about how the Bible tells us to "spur one another on toward love and good deeds" (Hebrews 10:24). I often like to think of myself as a good encourager, pushing my people on with a message of hope and grace. And while this is good and necessary, it is not the only way. Some situations call for spurs.

I imagine a horse likes to be motivated by a treat. Rewards make them feel good.
And I also figure that a horse is rightly motivated by a bit. Sure, it's probably annoying to be told where to go with a little tug. But if they follow along, then the bit releases and they can do what they want.
I'd bet that a horse does't love to be motivated by spurs. They're sharp and they dig.

We're not all that different from horses in this way, but each motivator has its purpose and its place--and all methods are necessary for us to perform our best.

The problem with only using a reward-motivator is that sometimes rewards don't come right away, so we get discouraged and stop.
The problem with a "bit" is that it only motivates you if someone is right there pulling on it--I don't have to do anything I don't want to when I'm all by myself.
Spurs can seem cruel in the moment, but the result is immediate and the tender feeling keeps you moving for some time afterward.

I think we are hesitant to "spur" each other because we think that being tough also makes you mean. This isn't always true.
You see, I thought my husband was being harsh, but it turns out that his "spurring" was actually one of the kindest things he's ever done for me. I may not have liked the way that it felt in the moment, but it turns out that nothing at that time was going to motivate me as much as a kick in the butt. And the reason his spurring has had such a lasting impact on me is because it was done in love.He didn't push me for any other reason but to help me move forward. It's why, after the kick, he ran beside me. When cowboys spur a horse, they intend to come along for the ride too.

I don't know if my husband quite knew what he was setting off when he gave me the kick, but I thank God he's still hanging on.

I'm also glad he's agreed to join me in my next crazy scheme: running the beautiful 13.1 trail by my house for no other reason than to say I bested it. (I think I'll call it the "Half Out of My Mind.") :)

Be sure to thank your cowboys, friends. (And may we be as tough as them if ever we are called.)

Dirty Windows

Years ago I met a fellow Aggie and Army wife, and through the beauty of social media we were able to remain connected even though our season of contact had been brief. She wrote a gratitude blog in which she listed out things that she was thankful for at the end of each day, every day for an entire year. (I have no idea if it is even still active.) Some of her posts were lengthy entries and some of them were tiny blurbs. Some of the items she listed were profound happenings and some of them were daily blessings. Still others were things often overlooked that just happened to speak to her heart that day.

One of the things she had written all those years ago came back to my memory this week. It was a shorter entry, and in it she expressed her gratitude for clean windows. (Shout out to the other ladies who get all philosophical doing house chores. We are a fun breed.)
The gist--and perhaps even the entirety of her message was this: sometimes it isn't until you clean your glass that you realize how dirty you'd let it become first place. You only thought you were looking out at a clear picture before because your eyes had adjusted to the dirt. Cleaning the windows reveals all the things you had been missing that you didn't even realize you were.

(Clearly, the girl was talking about much more than windows...)

This past week I underwent laser eye surgery. I've had corrective lenses since I was fourteen, so I've been seeing through contacts and glasses for the better half of my life. It honestly wasn't until this past year that they've really started bothering me, but the annoyance came upon me in full force. I realized hundreds of dollars too late in the game that only certain girls look hip and trendy in glasses, while the rest of us look like...well, not those girls. Therefore, my glasses were for emergency use only and I lived in contacts (which worked until it didn't.)
Maybe it is because we had more time to play and travel these past 18 months, but I recently discovered that contacts are also the devil. Contact solution doesn't travel well at all. I was losing contacts on bathrooms floors and in campgrounds. I looked like I had turrets every time I went to a water park and got splashed. Contacts were *RIPPING IN TWO INSIDE MY EYE WHILE I WAS DRIVING!*
Had I always lived like this and never noticed it?!?

I got the call from my eye doctor to schedule an exam, and she sweetly let me know that my insurance now only covered this service every other year.
So I sweetly laughed in her face and asked her to MAKE IT ALL STOP, MAN!!!

And so here we are--Three awful weeks where I was only allowed to wear my stupid glasses, maybe ten whole minutes of laser zaps to my eyeballs, and a million and twenty eye drops later.

And guess what? I can't see for beans.

It turns out that the specific problem with my vision made me a better candidate for PRK or LASEK. (I have no idea which one of those I got. I probably should care more about that but I don't. Just let me live.)
These procedures either remove or roll back the top section of the eye before your vision is corrected, and then a bandage (aka another contact...gah!) is placed on your eye while that top layer heals. This actually makes your vision weaker in the initial stages, but then it keeps getting better and better with time.
I get my bandages off tomorrow. I originally thought that would be the light at the end of the tunnel for this process, but I still wear sunglasses inside at night---so if this is the light, then it's burning me. The last time I saw the doc he told me that my vision might still be blurry after this first week and perhaps even worse than they were at the post-op. And friends, I'm thinking I'm one of the lucky winners who will indeed be worse.
If I chose to focus on this specific moment, everything about this situation would make it appear that I've been suckered into a bad choice.
So I choose not to focus on the fuzz of this exact moment, but on the sharper picture that's been promised ahead.


All this sitting around inside my house with my sunglasses on, pondering dirty windows and vision and fuzz, also got me thinking about someone else whose vision was muddied before they could see clearly. (Literally.)
John 9 introduces us to a man blind since birth. And Jesus, responding to his need, spits in the dirt and rubs mud onto the man's blind eyes. "Go wash," Jesus said. And when the man did, he could see.
This story confused me for so long. Jesus could have spoken and the man would have been healed. The man could have touched Jesus, believing, and received sight. Jesus could have merely willed it and it would have been so. Why did He spit in the dirt and put mud on this man's eyes??
It's because that man needed to wash more than he needed to see.

Friends, we don't have to be able to see it to know that there's mud on our eyes.

Looking past dirt takes some adjustments, to be sure. But once mastered, we get so good at looking through the dirt that we forget it's there, hiding the better picture.
Looking through clean glass takes real effort and persistence. A good cleaning is always worthwhile and met with reward, but it's a continual process. No matter how hard you scrub, the dirt is going to come back because dirt is a part of the earth we live on. It is simply going to get kicked up on our windows from time to time. Our choices will always ever be to adjust and look past it, or to wash it off. And there's a sharper, better picture at the end of only one of those options.

I say all this to you not as a profession of someone squeaky clean, but as someone who has made adjustments for far too long and has to wipe off the dirt again and again and again. Sometimes I worry that I smudge and streak more than I clean--either remnants of the massive dirt piles or evidence of the sloppy housekeeper.

But even so, I am so thankful for moments of pure grace when I can see something a little clearer than I did before.
(Even if, for now, it's through my sunglasses in the dark.)

1 Corinthians 13:12 (KJV)
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.


May we all help each other through the fuzz, in Love.

Filling the Gap

During the Easter season, this crazy lady did something that she's never done before. I participated in a Lenten fast.
I have been a church attender for the vast majority of my life, but none of my churches have ever participated in Lent as a congregation. I'm pretty sure that I'd never even heard the term "liturgical calendar" until this past year. And it wasn't until after I started the fast that I realized it was supposed to last for forty days and not a month like I had originally presumed. (Is it socially acceptable to bless one's own heart? Asking for a friend.)
Nevertheless, as I did more personal study into the concepts behind feasting and fasting seasons, I felt a pulling on my heart that I should use this particular season in my own life to recalibrate and recenter--and I knew the exact instrument I was supposed to remeasure.

My relationship with alcohol has been a seemingly innocent one by most accounts. Of course there were younger versions of myself that probably needed full-out interventions, but as I matured the rest of my practices changed with me. I was fairly certain that I had a pretty good handle on this particular subject.
So I have to tell you, I was really confused by how bothered I had become about my beverages.

For several months prior I had been reading articles about people who had quit drinking and talked to people who had chosen to abstain. I respected their decisions. I supported their efforts. I was *possibly* a little bit shallow as I wondered what cutting out alcohol might do for one's abdominal muscles, or a little bit cheap as I wondered what cutting out alcohol might do for one's pocket book. But I didn't choose to follow them, because I didn't quite struggle like they did.

But what I did struggle with was worrying how I'd been coming across lately: as Liz, the jolly lush.


(And to be fair to those people, I probably wasn't helping myself.)





Two of these three examples were school-related. Seriously, y'all. Bless my heart. (I've made it a thing now.)

It wasn't just the images I was putting out there, but images that people--out of nothing but their good intentions--were sending to me. These funny pictures and videos and memes all shared a common theme: the drink. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy the fact that people were thinking of me and sharing with me and laughing with me, but I did worry that somehow I had led people to believe that I took pleasure and amusement in just that one thing; or worse, I worried that I was connecting to people in just that one way.

For a person who "wasn't struggling," I had a weightiness when I considered these things that I just didn't like. So for the next 30--then 40 days, I killed the beast at the source.

You want to know a lesson I learned right out the gate?
What we think is "the beast" is hardly ever the source.

Alcohol was not the bad thing. The bad thing was all the "tools" I had made alcohol become.

It was my tool for helping me unwind.
Most every night my husband and I have a drink with a show. Every time the t.v. comes on, the drink goes in hand. When my husband would turn on our show and I would sit next to him, my desire for a beverage was triggered. I realized that the drink came with a reward center in my brain that said "Yes Liz. Good job today. Snuggle up next to your honey and relax." More than a habit, my evening drink had become a signal to myself that it was time to rest.

It was a tool for helping me treat my ailments.
I have struggled with anxiety. A glass of red can help with that. My family has struggled with high blood pressure. A glass of red can help with that. I have a uterus. A glass of red wine can help with that.

It was a tool for helping me deal with difficult things.
I also blame this on the tricky reward center. Because alcohol is a depressant, and it helps with blood flow, and it relaxes your muscles, it does help you calm down. When the kids are fighting all day and my stressed shoulders are up by my ears, a drink can help bring me back down. When my two-year-old son was in a terrifying accident, my husband had to give me a tequila shot to help me stop shaking from the shock. Or sometimes, as the picture above illustrates, things break and having a drink makes it feel a little less like work.

It was a tool for helping me celebrate.
The first day of Lent this year began on Valentine's Day. This proved to be difficult, because I wanted to celebrate my sweetheart and somehow iced tea just didn't send the message I wanted. My family came down during the first week of Lent to celebrate my birthday, and I burned my mouth on all of the extra citrus wedges I was putting in my drinks to make them feel more "fancy." We received some good news as a family during this Lenten season, and I rang in the news with sparkling cider and felt twelve. I went to concerts and sports events and got a soda and was sad.

Which led me to this humbling realization:
Alcohol was my treat of choice.
I don't have much of a sweet tooth at all, but I ate SO MANY desserts during these past 40 days. I ate things I would typically never choose just because I was searching for something that felt right for the occasion...a substitute... Anything to help "fill the gap" so to speak.

I had a fair idea before I started this journey of what my triggers might be. I bought hot tea for nighttime t.v. viewing, Tylenol for my uterus, got a massage for my stress, bought citrus and sparkling ciders for fun news, bought a ridiculous amount of treats for no reason...but those things didn't work for long, because they were just different choices--not better ones.

For rest:
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)

For health:
My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh. (Proverbs 4:20-22)

To de-stress:
Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. (1 Peter 5:7)

For celebrating:
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31)

To treat:
I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. (Genesis 15:1)

All of the other choices I was making to fill my gap during the Lenten season had left me thirsty. But now I also knew that filling up so many spaces with alcohol had left me longing too--it was cheap wine when I knew what the good stuff tasted like. This is not to say that one drink is evil and one is not. It is to say that there is a thing that's better--and it should always be my source.

The season is over, but the choices are still going to be there every day. Our hearts can't stay empty. Something is going to fill the gap.

What are you really thirsty for?

Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. (Isaiah 55:1)


Cheers!