Mom, You Are Beautiful

Growing up, my mom would tell us kids the story of how she and my dad met in college. She said he smiled his charming smile when they encountered one another on campus--or perhaps my dad's smile can be better described as a mischievous grin--and that's how he captured her attention. Always she tells the story as if she was an unattractive girl who somehow managed to snag this dashing young man's admiration.

As I've grown older and she describes me as "pretty" or "beautiful," she insists that I haven't inherited her appearance. But when my mom worked at TJ Maxx and I met her manager, the woman said immediately, "You're Lisa's daughter, aren't you? You look just like her." My mom denied this and said I took after my dad, as if this was the preferable option, which made him laugh and ask her what daughter wanted to look like her father. What she didn't realize is that her boss complimented me in one of the best possible ways.

What daughter--at least one that has a good relationship with her mom--doesn't want to grow up and be like her mother?

My mom sees beauty in others but she doesn't see it in herself.

Even as she ages and the colors in her hair fade into silver highlights, wrinkles begin to crease her skin where her eyes squint when she smiles or laughs, and her body retains more weight than she would like--she is beautiful.

She is beautiful because she loves. Because from an early age she knew she wanted to have a family and be a mother, and she held that dream close to her heart and prepared herself for that day. She shows the hard work, forbearance, strength, kindness, and gentleness of love in her daily life and labor.

She is beautiful because she is strong. She endured pregnancy and days of labor and the pain and slow recovery of a C-section to deliver me, and then two more pregnancies and natural births to bring my brothers into the world. She's beautiful because she worried for my health even before I was born until she dreamed of a healthy, happy child and knew I was safe. She wouldn't listen to the doctors tell her to consider an abortion because my brother would supposedly be born with a heart condition.

She's beautiful because she was willing to give up and go without to be a mother and care for her children. Choosing to be a stay-at-home mom when it was and is unpopular, she was shunned or treated with condescension by my dad's coworker's working wives because she didn't "have a real job." She worked long hours with grumpy, unwilling, ungrateful children, teaching them everything from math and science to a love of books, from patriotism to the attributes that make up a strong moral character.

She's beautiful because she is caring. She prepares meals and cleans up after her family, as children, as teens, as adults. Over the years she has ran errands, tackled a household budget, cleaned a home, ensured regular meals were made, washed and folded laundry, taught life lessons, soothed illnesses, worried about safety, provided educations, drove kids to practices and games, and countless other "expected" responsibilities that probably, more often than not, went un-thanked and maybe even unnoticed.

She's beautiful because she dedicated her life to Christ and taught her children to love Him, too. She has rejoiced in His love and grows in faith and trust ever since the day she and her husband chose to follow Him. She shared her faith with her children and respected their individuality, patiently explaining God's love to them so that they could choose if they wanted to accept it, too. She prayed with them and for them and watched them grow.

She's beautiful because she trusts and believes. Not only does she put her trust in God, but she has faith in her children to do what is right and obey Him now that they are His. She embraces her children's dreams and sees the best in them and refuses to let them give up on their goals. She encourages them when they are discouraged and is their cheerleader, their friend, when it seems the rest of the world doesn't believe in them. She sees talent and good and intelligence in them and it opens their eyes for them to see it, too. Yes, she's beautiful because she sees beauty in others.

She's beautiful for the love, the patience, the dedication, she shows. She's beautiful for the time she sacrifices and the pain she endures. She's beautiful because she gives. Even when she doesn't always receive.

Do I look like you, Mom? I'd tend to think I take after you, physically, in more ways than you realize. But do I act like you? You've taught me well; it's up to me to embrace the lessons. The best compliment a daughter can receive is that she is like her mom, and I want to be like mine. Because, Mom, you are beautiful.

Complacency

Writing is therapeutic and therapy sounds great right about now. So does a chocolate bar, and a hot tub, and a day to sleep in ridiculously late, but that's a little off-topic. ...Well, it would be assuming I had a topic at the moment. Which I'm not entirely sure about.

Lately I feel like I've been a huge failure as a Christian. It's nothing that I'm doing--my life looks pretty dang sparkly and clean on the outside--but more what I am failing to do. I consistently put myself and my desires ahead of God and spending time with Him. I forget to talk with Him, to listen to Him, to live for Him, to seek what He wants me to do. I wake up every morning focusing on my agenda for the day: what I have to accomplish, what I should accomplish, and (to be completely honest) what I want to avoid accomplishing. Everything is going so well in my life that I've sunk into a cozy little pit of annoying complacency. It's just sickening enough to make me uncomfortable, as if I overate at a Thanksgiving dinner; but it doesn't bother me enough to keep me from jumping up and cutting myself a slice of pumpkin pie when it comes time for dessert. (Actually, I'm still thinking about that chocolate bar.) In other words, it must not bother me enough yet. Or maybe I'm just not sure how to change.

Habits are hard to form and even harder to break. And I guess I'm starting to realize that I don't know how to talk to God as well as I once thought I did. Maybe I learned all the wrong ways to pray and formed some bad habits. I don't want to continuously go to Him every day with the same list of problems, concerns, and desires--my relationship with Him shouldn't be all about what I can get out of it. Yes, we're supposed to take our problems to him, but when it's emphasized too much it's easy to then sink into a ritual of reciting the same supplications day in and day out. I know God sure doesn't care much about hearing the same things every night and I sure don't feel like being a broken record. "Pray until something happens" sounds great until you are trapped in such monotony that you forget why you even started praying for a particular situation, or you repeat the words only because you feel like you're supposed to. It's lost all meaning. It's almost like we think that God isn't powerful enough to answer our one-time prayers; that He needs our help. Maybe if we religiously say the same things over and over, He will finally answer our prayers on our terms in our time. Maybe.

With that sort of attitude, no wonder I have such a bad prayer life now. Of course I do. I got bored.

Here's my other problem. Focus is so often put on what we are supposed to say but little emphasis is placed on how we are supposed to listen. I don't know about you, but I'm seriously craving some personal words from God. I don't want prayer time to be all about what I have to say to God. In fact, being a writer and a "words person," I need to hear from Him desperately. I need to be reminded of His love. I need encouragement and advice and reassurance. I'd be a lot more comfortable sitting at His feet and listening to Him about what He thinks about my life and where He wants me to go, who He wants me to be, and what He wants me to do than I would talking about it. Because I don't have a clue.

I want to try to break my old bad habits and form new ones. I want my relationship with God to be more like a relationship. I want my prayers to be more like conversations. Since I'm a "words" person and a writer, I think I want to try writing out my prayers and then the words I feel God is answering me with. It's a lot easier than trying to speak (aloud or otherwise). There's a deeper connection there and I think that's what I need to pursue.

But I want some help and accountability, dear friends. Please pray for me (and no, that doesn't mean you have to repeat the same words to God over and over for a certain number of nights!) and take this journey with me if you feel that you need to do so. Find a new way to communicate with God that you haven't tried before, one that opens the doors to talk to Him more freely and naturally and helps you listen to Him. And please, if you remember, take a chance to talk to me about it. Ask how I'm doing. I'll check in with you. Forgive all my rambling tonight...but thank you for reading. Let's try to pursue our relationships with God on a deeper level and avoid these pits of complacency. Because I'm sick of it...and I think I'm finally sick enough to find a way to change.

In the Background: The Life of the Stereotypical Lone Writer/Editor

One of the most hated and sometimes even painful aspects of my career as an English major in college was the constant “Oh, so you’re going to be a teacher?” question. “No,” I’d respond in annoyance. With enthusiasm in my voice (at least at first), I would explain to them my dream of becoming an editor and writer. More than once I’d watch the questioner’s eyes glaze over or see the blank look that clearly echoed their thoughts: “Wow, what a boring career choice,” “I know nothing about editing,” “You’ll be living on Ramen noodles the rest of your life or working at Meijer with that kind of dream,” or “I don’t know of any great editors who have made a big impact on people’s lives.” It was rare to get an interested reaction from someone who actually understood.

We writers and editors often find ourselves pushed back out of the limelight. Maybe we’re even misunderstood. Others don’t always point to us and say, “He’s going to change people’s lives someday with the words he writes” or “She’s going to edit a book and help a great writer achieve renown and spread an important message.” We’re the loners: stereotyped as always cooped up in our bedrooms pounding away at a keyboard or scribbling upon page after page of manuscripts with the dreaded red pen. Everyone has a favorite teacher who influenced their lives in some way, modeled great character, or assisted them with finding their career path.

Who has a favorite editor? And even favorite writers are generally loved for what they produce versus who they are. For instance, I love Jane Austen’s work. But I’ve never met her. I can only imagine that she had the type of witty, clever personality that radiates throughout her work, but maybe in person she was awkward, stuttering, and shy. Who can say?

Basically, writers and editors live in the background. We may know writer’s names but we don’t consider their career choice as practical or even, necessarily, important. In a world where everyone Tweets about the latest wins of their favorite football teams, updates their Facebook statuses to ask about the most recent movie release, and goes home every night to their prerecorded episodes of their favorite TV shows, why is a writer important? Everyone needs a teacher on their path to finding that job they’ll make a living from. But do we need editors that much? Writers? Who really thinks about that?

And how people perceive us isn’t our only struggle in the literary world. What if that book you edit doesn’t make the bestseller list? Or maybe you pour blood, sweat, and tears into a book only to publish it to an enthralled and moved audience of a handful of people. You felt compelled to share something that tugs at your heartstrings, but your book is left to collect dust on shelves and be forgotten while others talks about the other things or people around them that changed their life, their minds, and their attitude. Do we strive to produce good literature for nothing?

The answer, for me, is to remember why I chose writing and editing in the first place, outside of my love for the two. Our motives can’t revolve around making a name for ourselves, if we want to experience success and satisfaction in our pursuits. We have to have a passion about what we’re sharing. We have to believe it’s worth it, no matter if one person or millions read the words we spread.

I remember the books that have influenced my life, my thoughts, and my perspective. A teacher or doctor or engineer might make more tangible differences in the world, but we writers and editors are there in the background giving them a hand. We’re there in the textbooks we write or edit for the teachers. We’re there in the guidebooks that offer direction. We’re there in the books parents read to children at bedtime. We’re there in the dictionaries that make communication clearer and more effective. We’re there in the fictional novels and the literature others discuss and draw ideas from or pick “role model” characters to look up to. We’re there in the thoughts and ideas and agendas we put into words.

It’s not about us. In fact, sometimes it may be best if we remain in the background, less “known,” for the sake of promoting our words all the more. We like J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, and even J.K. Rowling and Susan Collins (whether you consider The Hunger Games “literary” or not), rarely because we know their names or read news or biographies about them, but usually because we know their messages. Their books contain ideas that inspire us or make us think, or characters and morals that motivate us to be better. In some way, what they wrote has influenced us.

It may not be in a very tangible way (how can you measure the impact you have on someone’s mind or heart?), it may bear some loneliness or bad stereotypes, it may keep us “in the background,” but language is influential. Whether he actually said them or not, Abraham Lincoln’s alleged words during the Civil War to Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, serve as a rallying cry to authors: “So this is the little lady who started this big war.” Who is to say that your book, whether it makes an impact on the world, a nation, or just a handful of people, isn’t important? If it’s important to you, someone else is bound to glean something valuable from it.

So maybe coping with this “lone writer” syndrome involves in changing our perspectives and priorities. Maybe our definition of success shouldn’t be founded in what others think or say about us or even what we write. Our success lies not in who knows our names or how many people know our works, but in whether or not we share our messages.